


fifteen hours in-between

by mismatched (miscalculated)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: (Again kinda), (kinda), Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Referenced Previous Sexual Harassment, Rough Sex, Under-negotiated Kink, Unprotected Sex, implied personality disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25399657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscalculated/pseuds/mismatched
Summary: This isn’t so different, here, when Mingyu’s fire snuffs out every time Jihoon meets his eyes. Mingyu says or does something, and Jihoon laughs, gaze never averting. Jihoon wanders off by himself, and Mingyu peels himself away from the group to stand beside him and blurt anything to spark conversation. There aren’t any powerful photographers or directors to impress, no agency chief executives or designers; but there is a powerful music producer that Mingyu’s manager loves, and Mingyu wants to love and be loved, too. That’s a part of him he can’t shut off.*Mingyu and Jihoon, eight years apart, leave their lives fifteen hours into the future.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 27
Kudos: 127





	fifteen hours in-between

**Author's Note:**

> how.dy. 
> 
> i have returned with another jigyu. i have been wanting to write this for a minute, but could never get it right (in my opinion). it is set in a country i hold near and dear to my heart. 
> 
> **some notes to share** :  
> * Seungkwan, Jihoon, and Soonyoung are aged up. 26, 29, and 28 respectively.  
> * Mingyu and Seokmin are aged (a tiny bit) down. both are 21yo. 
> 
> my same thanks goes to V/Villa/halfpastwo for, as always, encouraging and being my beta. you are the real mvp for staying up late with me to see that it was done. 
> 
> thanks as always for reading, and i love hearing your thoughts! [heart emoji]

Mingyu’s sitting in the private wing of the airport, watching Seungkwan pace back and forth like a pendulum. Seungkwan has his phone pressed firmly to his ear, shoulders hunched over and speaking in tense, clipped sentences as if it’s a conversation he has to keep from the other men. Force of habit, Mingyu supposes. He leans back in the stiff plastic chair, legs spreading, and continues to follow Seungkwan scale the perimeter with his eyes. Instead of a wall, there are picture windows to Mingyu’s left, giving way to the slow amble of airplanes down the runway. Incheon’s sun is bright and unforgiving. 

Airports often feel like a separate reality, but Mingyu feels particularly disjointed today, like he’s in a dream and doesn’t know it, only to soon wake up and realize that there were subtle differences making this impossible to be his real life. Seungkwan’s hair burning brown under the splays of sun instead of its signature honey blonde; the gate being too empty, too sparse of people. Seokmin sitting in a seat across from him when he should be in Gwanak or Pyeonchang. Soonyoung with bleached hair; Lee Jihoon — Seungkwan and Soonyoung’s old friend from when they worked at _Pledis_ — beside him, earbuds in. 

Then, the most staggering: Mingyu here in Incheon International Airport with a month’s worth of clothes packed away, when he’s supposed to be in Gangnam, snacking on cherry tomatoes while Seungkwan drives him to his _Dazed_ photoshoot. 

Seungkwan visibly bristles, spine uncurling to rod-straight. “Yes, right,” Mingyu manages to catch from this distance. “Well — not anymore — no, he isn’t. That’s fine—“ 

A photoshoot that’s no longer happening. Something ugly and acrid settles in the base of his lungs. Mingyu drops his sunglasses from where it’s perched on the crown of his head to over his eyes, tips his head back, and tries to get as comfortable as one can get against the back of a plastic chair. 

He doesn’t have his eyes closed for long before a weight rests in the seat to his right. Their presence registers as comfort. Seokmin. “Feels too good to be true, huh?” he asks conversationally. 

A thought that threatens to expel the bile in his stomach hits Mingyu, the idea of abandoning all he’s worked for, risking obscurity in an industry that chews and swallows people like mints. Aloud, Mingyu says, “A little, yeah.” 

If Seokmin senses his reluctance to carry conversation, he ignores it. “Such a weird time. I never thought I’d be going on a trip with Soonyoung or Jihoon hyung. You and Seungkwan hyung, yeah — but not them.” He waves a vague hand in Soonyoung and Jihoon’s direction, where they’re seated with their backs to them. Jihoon’s hair is a pale auburn, dark roots already coming through. Mingyu has never seen him with any hair color other than black — but, to be fair, he hasn’t seen much of any of Jihoon. 

“Seungkwan hyung said they’re workaholics,” Mingyu says. His tongue weighs heavy in his mouth. 

Seokmin breathes a laugh through his nose. “Works _me_ to death.” 

Before Seokmin was Seokmin, he was the guy a family friend suggested Mingyu’s father should hire to perform at their charity event. It was one of hundreds, so Mingyu hadn’t thought it relevant to remember. But Seokmin, albeit a foreign face in a sea of strangers, left a fingerprint of an impression in his subconscious; same-aged, freshly eighteen at the time, with a pointy nose, a megawatt smile, and the voice that rivaled even Wheesun when he sang _A Story that Cannot be Told_ during an intermission. 

They’d kept in touch by consequence of operating in similar circles. That, and Seokmin had proven himself the same warmth and kindness that Mingyu had first seen; it was during their fifth or sixth run-in that Mingyu decided he wasn’t like the other asshole kids with too much money and a dangerously large amount of free time to ‘pursue their dreams’ or whatever the fuck rich kids did. Become idols, maybe. (The same can be said about Mingyu, but he argues that at least he’s taking his job seriously, made something of himself. That’s more than what his cohorts can say.)

Mingyu’s adult life began to piece together, stitch by stitch. First — Lee Seokmin. Then, Boo Seungkwan was a manager from Mingyu’s mother’s previous agency. And he knows people, can convince a brick to build itself if he had to. After — Kwon Soonyoung.

Last — Lee Jihoon. 

“I promise he’s super cool normally,” Seokmin follows the direction Mingyu’s head is turned, towards the distant Soonyoung and Jihoon, so far away in an eighty-person, private wing assigned to five. “Jihoon hyung’s had some, uh. Personal stuff going on, so he’s not as nice right now.” Seokmin fingers hover over Mingyu’s lap as if wanting to touch, but unsure whether it’s what Mingyu would want. (Of course, Mingyu wants it.) “He doesn’t hate you or anything, just sad. I think he acts angry because he’d rather be that than, y’know. Sad.” 

_Don’t we all?_ Mingyu thinks bitterly. “That’s okay,” he says. “Thanks for the heads up.” 

But his tongue is heavy and bitter, the memory of the last and first time he’s seen Jihoon hazy but not unpleasant. Just strange, a different reality, much like this airport; Jihoon’s disposition translated as inviting in the moment, remembered as strained, when Mingyu’s thoughts were no longer licentious and he could recount it with clarity. Jihoon had that tight-lipped smile and empty eyes of someone that had just learned pleasantries through a rulebook — jolted, brief, then Jihoon had turned away from Mingyu and regarded Seungkwan, Soonyoung. 

Mingyu was barely a man then, so he understands. There isn’t much use in a teenager fresh into modeling and with zero connections to the music industry. He was just Seungkwan’s carry-on luggage, stopping by Jihoon’s studio because Seungkwan had to ‘drop off something to a friend’ and it couldn’t wait until after he drove Mingyu to the agency and back. Under a neon purple glow, Jihoon’s black hair shimmered in streaks of color. 

Now, it’s light auburn. Now, Mingyu’s a man, with something more to say and to give. Yet Jihoon had dropped even the robotic pleasantries this time, hummed his greeting at Mingyu when he and Seungkwan arrived to the airport. 

His tongue feels several kilograms overweight. He wants to scream, or cry. His father likes to tell him his mind is sick and rebellious, that it convinces him to do and be everything he shouldn’t. Mingyu thinks of his father as he peers over at the jut of Jihoon’s head. 

  
  


A twenty-four hour flight with two stops in the states, 2-hour layovers at each. Which means it’s more than a day spent traveling to a single country. Mingyu is stocked with his arsenal of face sheets, a neck pillow, and gum to pop his ears when gravity fills his head with pressure. Seungkwan bought wifi for the two of them to bide their time, and he spends the majority of the flight tying loose ends, sending emails and text messages while Mingyu listens to his playlist beside him. 

Seokmin is in the row in front of them, squished between two strangers; Soonyoung and Jihoon are across the aisle. 

Mingyu hears Seungkwan expel a heavy sigh through his earbuds. 

“Do you still think this is a good idea?” Mingyu asks. His voice is gruff from dipping in and out of sleep. They’re several hours into their flight, and his legs are already cramping up from the way they’re contorted against the seat in front of him. 

“For your career?” Seungkwan says. “I don’t think this’ll put a dent in whatever else we’re gonna have to deal with when we get back.” He looks from his computer screen to Mingyu, who has his neck pillow on and his eyes closed. “For you? Absolutely.” 

Mingyu knows he’s right — the rational him, at least — but he can’t help but agonize over how bad this is. How bad he’s being, running away like a fool instead of being a good boy sucking it up. _It’s just business_ . Right. Just business. Seungkwan’s trying to protect him from the inevitable, but if it’s protection Seungkwan wants to provide, he should’ve talked him out of this job years ago. He knows. He knows, because Seungkwan’s been doing managerial work for _Esteem_ for years, he’s seen what happens when you aren’t good, when you pretend like you’re anything else than a mannequin. He’s seen— 

“You scare me sometimes,” Seungkwan says. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard from him before, but Mingyu obediently opens his eyes and looks at him. There’s an exhausted sag to Seungkwan’s face, lines deepening a decade too early. “When you keep bending over backwards for people that don’t deserve you. That’s— while that can sometimes get you far, especially for your career, you… you have to learn the difference.” 

Mingyu blinks slowly at him. “The difference,” he deadpans. 

“What’s an unreasonable request and what isn’t. That’s important. You may not think so, but,” he’s giving Mingyu that scolding look now, the one with his eyes widened and lips a straight line. “If you want to keep your sanity. It’s important.” 

Mingyu can’t think of a polite way to call Seungkwan an idiot and a hypocrite in the few seconds that Seungkwan gives him to respond, so the moment passes, and Seungkwan’s words remain heavy in the air. Seungkwan turns back to his email and continues to work on the draft he’s been trying to perfect for the last half-hour.

“Right,” he says. He wonders where the line lies between ‘reasonable’ and ‘unreasonable’ — how, exactly, the scale is balanced inside of Seungkwan’s mind. Does his silence signify his stamp of approval? When Mingyu lasted months on cherry tomatoes and boiled carrots, dropped the 10kg his agent mandated him lose, did Seungkwan’s silence make that okay? _It’s just business._ Seungkwan told him no, that _that_ wasn’t ‘just business’, but this was, wasn’t it? 

It’s _all_ fucking business. The soft bits, the tough ones, the landscape in between. And, still, Mingyu’s running away. 

Mingyu closes his eyes again, shifting around to find a new position for his legs once they start to prickle with needles. 

  
  


He and Seokmin practice their Spanish halfway through the flight, rolling basic questions and answers around in their mouths until they’re more confident with them. Seokmin’d bought a book, _Survival Spanish_ , despite the short notice, and Mingyu tugs down the food tray to read and mark over it with yellow highlighter. Beside him, Seungkwan is fast asleep, his neck crooked in an angle that can’t possibly be comfortable. 

Seokmin turns around in his seat. “ _Pura Vida_ ,” he says. “ _Me llamo Seokmin. Y usted_?” 

Mingyu laughs, a lethargic noise. “I read they say _buenas_ . Not really _Pura Vida_. Unless you wanna sound like a tourist.” 

“Whatever,” Seokmin waves a dismissive hand around. “I am a tourist, anyway.” 

They practice a few more phrases. _Con permiso, donde está el baño? Donde está la playa? Quiero arroz con pollo, por favor._ For Seungkwan’s sake, _un café sin leche_. 

Then, more practical: _Quiero rentar un carro con cinco asientos. Yo reservé dos cuartos. Mi nombre es..._

When Mingyu’s through, he returns the book to Seokmin, puts his earbuds back in, and has _30-Minute Spanish Podcast_ lull him to sleep. 

  
  


The internet already told Mingyu that Costa Rica’s rainy season lasts from summer and well into fall; luckily, a storm seems to have passed just before they make it to San Jose International Airport. Once they’re through with baggage claim, he stands idly while Soonyoung — the one with the best Spanish — rents them a car for the duration of their trip. It’s a tedious endeavor, the older men (Soonyoung, Jihoon, Seungkwan) having to exchange their loose won for as much colones as they can get. 

Then, Mingyu helps pack their luggage into their five-seat van. _Quiero rentar un carro con cinco asientos, por favor._

Seungkwan takes the driver’s seat, Jihoon in the passenger. Everyone else piles into the back. 

“Okay, so,” Seungkwan says to his GPS app. “Guanacaste is three hours away. Anyone want to grab some food before we go, or are we okay?” He twists in his seat to look at each of their faces. 

“I’m more tired than hungry,” Soonyoung offers, once it’s clear no one else is going to take the initiative. “Let’s start driving to the airbnb and maybe if we get hungry on the way we can?” 

Seungkwan searches their faces once more for a dissenting opinion. He receives sleepy disorientation. “Alright,” he says. “Sounds like a plan.” 

The drive is scenic — whatever Mingyu sees of it while his consciousness wax and wanes. Steep mountain roads, trees unrealistically green. Mingyu snaps a few photos with his film camera in between his naps; Seungkwan plays old school ballads on a low volume, chats quietly with Jihoon every now and then. Mingyu can’t see Jihoon from his spot behind him, but he can watch Seungkwan speak animatedly, laughing and listening as Jihoon responds, with warmth in his eyes. Adoration.

Seungkwan has something soft and precious. That warmth holds history — his and Jihoon’s — a time before Mingyu ever came into the picture. He’s been afforded what Mingyu hasn’t; and Mingyu knows that he’s being irrational. Stupid, even. Seungkwan has known Jihoon _years_ prior to whatever’s affecting him now, while Mingyu’s only ever met distant, brooding Jihoon. This, at least, he can understand, but his tongue is heavy with unspoken words, and he’s wound so tight that if he doesn’t do something about it he’s going to burst. 

_Impulsive_ , his father calls it. Knowing better and yet succumbing to the first idea his mind suggests to him. His mother says there’s nothing wrong with wanting the entire world to fall in love with you. 

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be liked, to be known. To know. 

“Jihoon hyung,” Mingyu says. 

Jihoon doesn’t bother glancing behind him. “Hmm?” he hums. 

“Have you been to Central America before?” 

His response is a few seconds late. “I haven’t.” 

Mingyu adjusts in his seat, sitting up with the help of the legs of Jihoon’s headrest. “I came once,” he says. “To Panama. I was hired for a cologne commercial — I think it was _Dolce & Gabbana _? I ‘dunno. It was a few years ago — and we filmed on Panama City Beach.” 

“It was _Dolce & Gabbana _, yes,” Seungkwan interjects. “Their South Korea campaign.” 

“Mm,” Jihoon hums again. Dry, dismissive, but Mingyu’s on fucking fire and he needs to expel the smoke before he burns. He has a furnace in his lungs and it’s spitting soot. 

“I was, like, eighteen? Then. They said my face didn’t look mature enough, so they, like,” he swallows thickly, shifts so he can see the profile of Jihoon’s face. “Had to put a lot of makeup on me to make my jaw and cheekbones stick out more.” 

Jihoon’s scrolling through his emails on his phone, body drowning in his sweatshirt and joggers. “Ahh,” he drawls. 

Mingyu can see Seungkwan staring at him through the rearview mirror. It’s his _stop talking_ glare, the one he often uses when they’re on set for a photoshoot and Mingyu is all nerves and synapses shaped into a man, barfing whatever he can think to say in hopes that one, loose string of thought earns him attention, favor. Soonyoung has been asleep against the left door’s window, and Seokmin, too, is watching Mingyu’s fire roar to life. 

“We were on the beach for _hours_. I had to keep doing different takes, because the director was a perfectionist asshole. And you’d think I’d be hot on a beach, right?” 

“Uh-huh.” Jihoon’s voice sounds far away. 

Seungkwan’s glare deepens. 

“But it wasn’t! After jumping in and out of the ocean a million times I was freezing, but you can’t complain. You have to do as you’re told with a smile or else they’ll blacklist you—“ 

“Mingyu,” Seungkwan says, stern. “It’s been a long two days.” 

That should be his cue to shut the fuck up, but Mingyu barely hears anything other than Jihoon’s bored hums, can only see the tired, distracted pull to his face, auburn hair frizzy and wild. 

“So I sucked it up and did my job,” Mingyu says. “I wanted to strangle him by the end of it, but whatever. I got paid and the commercial was over with.” He takes a deep breath. “Well,” he exhales. “It wasn’t over with. When I was—“ 

“ _Mingyu_.” 

“—getting ready to go to bed in the hotel, guess who calls me asking to drink? The asshole director. And, I had to go, right? I couldn’t turn him—“ 

“ _Mingyu_. Let’s try to have some peace in the ca—“ 

“—down. So I went. And he was alone.” 

Now Jihoon’s attention is off of his phone and on Mingyu, his face gradually softening into amusement. His eyes flicker from Seungkwan to Mingyu and back. 

“Enough, please,” Seungkwan tries to win a losing battle. He shoots Jihoon an apologetic look — but Jihoon isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s watching with curious amazement as Mingyu prattles on as if Seungkwan isn’t speaking at all. 

“He kept trying to buy me beers since I could drink in that country. I tried to stop after, like, a beer and a half, but he was insisting. And it was creeping me out. At some point I had to pee, but I was afraid to leave my drink alone with him—“ 

Seungkwan swerves onto the side of the road, in the dirt and gravel. It’s sudden and reckless, jerking Soonyoung awake when his head knocks against the window; Seokmin lets out a tiny shriek and folds into himself. 

Everyone stares at Seungkwan like a deer in headlights. 

“I told you,” Seungkwan starts, low, as he turns around and gives Mingyu a glare that could murder him, bring him to life, and murder him again. “To _shut up_. It’s been an exhausting fucking day, we’re tired and hungry, and we need peace. And. Quiet. Understand?” 

Silence. Soonyoung is grimacing with his hand cupped around where his head collided against the door, Seokmin watches them uncertainly, and Jihoon shifts his shocked gaze from Seungkwan to Mingyu. Mingyu worries his bottom lip, chin tipped in an apology. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. 

Then. Mingyu’s almost convinced he’s hallucinating, disoriented from the whiplash of the swerve, when Jihoon goes from dead silence to a cackle loud and unabashed. Jihoon’s eyes narrow into crescents, mouth wide open, and he presses his hands to his stomach as he curls over and laughs. And laughs. Wipes away some tears and laughs some more. 

Mingyu can’t look away. _Fangs_ , Mingyu thinks. 

“What the fuck just happened?” Soonyoung groans. 

  
  


Their airbnb is a beachfront villa. It’s perched precariously on the steepest hill Mingyu’s ever seen, leaning out over the white, white beach. _Playa Carrillo_. Out in the ocean, in the near distance, there’s a tiny blip of an island. 

“Great find so last minute,” Seokmin says. 

The air is thick with humidity and salt. An occasional breeze will run through as they walk, billowing Mingyu’s blouse and rustling the overarching palm trees. Costa Rica, more than any country he’s been to, Mingyu reflects, feels as if it’s been built within a forest rather than decimating one. Like the natives ( _Ticos_ , one of the websites said) have learned to co-exist, adapt to tolerating the routine of wildlife, the undergrowth that bites at their ankles, a sun that burns with violence. His vantage point gives him an expansive view of _Playa Carrillo_ and the neighborhood interspersed between. Roofs made of metal sheets peek up behind the greenery that stretches for several kilometers all around them; some doors and windows are barred, while other homes are completely encircled with a gate. And while the main roads were paved, littered in potholes and slabs of asphalt, everywhere else the streets are dirt and rubble.

Children wander unsupervised, skin brown and hair windblown. They stare at Mingyu and the others with wonder as they pass by. Stray dogs amble along the streets and homes like they, too, are natives long since accustomed to the bustle of a sleepy town. 

This time Mingyu uses his sparse Spanish ability to inquire about their booking. The doorman leads them to the front door of their villa with gesticulations and the occasional phrase he hopes they can understand — _venga conmigo. Tus llaves. Gracias_. Mingyu thanks him in return, and they all bow as the man waves and walks off down the hill and back to the main villa. 

Their airbnb doesn’t have a gate, but the windows are also barred. And unlike the rest of the neighborhood, the roof is made of clay tile, and a cobblestone walkway leads them to the front door. They wait as Mingyu jiggles the lock open with the keys. 

A cold gust slaps them in the face as they step past the threshold and inside the common space. “Oh, thank _god_ ,” Soonyoung groans, eyelashes fluttering in bliss. He kicks off his sandals immediately and goes to drop his suitcase and duffel bag on the hardwood floors. 

The other men take off their shoes and congregate in the common space with Soonyoung. 

Seungkwan whistles. “Looks nice,” he says, appreciating his surroundings. 

It is nice. The living room is wide, with tall walls and sliding, glass doors that lead out to a patio. Everything is earthy browns and greens, paintings of toucans and sloths are hanging up above the television set, and there’s a single couch and coffee table. The smell of salt permeates even here. 

“Three beds, two baths,” Seungkwan explains to them. “So one of us gets a room alone.” He looks at Jihoon before they get a chance to call dibs. “Hyung? Want the solo room?” 

Jihoon turns away from the patio and blinks at him as if returning from a daze. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Please.” 

Seokmin shuffles to Mingyu’s side. “We can share a room and let Seungkwan and Soonyoung hyung stay together,” he offers. 

Mingyu is watching Soonyoung nudge Jihoon and say something to make him smile when he answers, “Let’s find the one with the best view.” 

  
  
  


Jet lag is fucking miserable. South Korea is fifteen hours ahead of Costa Rica, which means it’s going to take a few days to feel even somewhat oriented to time and place. That, and the sun sets at six p.m. this time of year, while in South Korea the sun sets at eight p.m. Not like Mingyu has any idea what time it is in South Korea right now. Probably approaching dawn, since it’s already nightfall here, in _Playa Carrillo_. 

Nightfall, maybe ten or so hours of sporadic, unrestful sleep, and yet Mingyu lies awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Seokmin is fast asleep in the other bed like _Mingyu_ should be. It’s not as if he isn’t tired. He is. He’s fucking exhausted, eyes burning, muscles wound tight, breathing shallowly because even that takes up too much energy. He nearly passed out in the walk-in shower trying to keep himself upright while washing his hair. No one was hungry enough to choose eating over sleep. So they slept. 

Then the villa falls quiet, and Mingyu’s brain decides that it doesn’t want to allow him reprieve anymore. He can hear the white noise of crickets screeching, the ocean crashing against its shore. Sometimes children pass by their window chatting loudly in Spanish. The furnace sputters to life. 

Mingyu should be in Gangnam. He’s in Guanacaste, but he should be at his apartment in Gangnam. His mom would tell him the same thing. She isn’t stupid, she understands how this works; he _grew up_ with her, for fucks sake. Her last message to him on KaKao Talk, before Seungkwan made him hit _Do Not Disturb_ , confirmed what Mingyu had already known. It’s just business. The sooner you accept this, the further you’ll go. She was lightyears ahead of him at the age he is now, because she was smart, and Mingyu is stupid. 

Seungkwan is stupid, too. Mingyu should be in Gangnam. 

Mingyu shoots up out of bed and leaves the room. _Impulsive_. 

Right. He’s impulsive. But, it’s earned him so much, gotten him to this point. There’s nothing wrong with wanting the whole world to love you. To be adored, to be seen, and Mingyu wants, needs, to be seen. 

He knows Jihoon’s awake, because the light is still on under his door. Mingyu knocks on the door. He wrings his hands behind the small of his back, rubbing his skin raw, while he waits. 

There’s an extended pause, an ocean eating at its shore, before Mingyu sees the door handle twist. Dressed in another oversized tee and some sleep shorts, Jihoon materializes on the other side of the door. His auburn hair is damp, and his face is a ghostly pallor. 

Jihoon has to tip his head back to look Mingyu in the face. “Yeah?” 

“Do you feel like,” Mingyu says. “You shouldn’t be here? Like— like you’re trying to run from something that you should be facing?” 

Jihoon watches Mingyu watch him. He hasn’t moved his hand from the door handle. 

“Because it feels like I shouldn’t be here?” Mingyu swallows the pool of saliva building at the floor of his mouth, keeps wringing his hands. It burns. “That asshole director in Panama. He— he knew what he was doing was fucked up, right? I wasn’t even legal in Korea, but, like. But he wanted to get me drunk. He promised me another campaign if I sucked his dick. That’s not the first— or even the _last_ —time I’ve been propositioned. But, now. Like, now, I’m—“ 

Jihoon swings the door open wider and takes a step back. Face resigned, he flops a hand at him. “If you’re going to keep talking, at least get in here so you’re not disturbing the others.” 

Mingyu’s lips remain parted, a little dumbfounded. Swallowing again, he glances down each side of the hall, and then walks in the room and shuts the door behind him. 

Jihoon’s suitcases are open and sitting against the wall with the window; his bed — the only bed — is messy with bedsheets. His laptop is sitting at the head, earphones plugged in. 

“You’re not tired?” Jihoon asks, dull like he doesn’t care about the answer. He walks back over to his bed and gets under the covers. He puts his laptop on his lap. 

Mingyu shrugs a shoulder. “Yes? Kinda?” Jihoon’s eyes flicker up at him, then to his computer screen. “A lot? You aren’t?” 

“I am.” 

The bed is so big. It makes Jihoon look impossibly smaller in contrast. And his face is so round and youthful, made younger in clothes that are always two sizes too big. If Mingyu hadn’t already known he’s twenty-nine, he could’ve easily mistaken him for early to mid twenties. Not like twenty-nine is old. Just about a decade older than him. 

Mingyu goes to sit at the foot of Jihoon’s bed, bending his knees so his thighs are pressed to his chest. Jihoon blinks up at him again, this time shocked at the audacity to crawl onto a near-stranger’s mattress. “May I help you?”

“Are you running, too?” Mingyu asks. “From something that’s gonna be there when you fly back to Incheon?” 

Jihoon’s expression hasn’t changed. He continues to stare as if Mingyu isn’t speaking fluent Korean. 

“Is this stupid of me?” Mingyu whispers. “I— like. I’ve been doing this since I was fifteen. My mom has been doing this since she was twelve.” He pauses. “Well. She’s retired now. But, the point is that I know this is how this goes? So why am I running this time?” 

Jihoon expels a shaky breath. “How am I supposed to know that?” 

“You’re wiser, I think. You’re a part of the music copyright association. And—and you’re juggling work and life, so you know more than me? Also. You’re gonna be married in a ye—“ 

Jihoon slams his laptop screen down, jolting Mingyu into instant silence. His face hardened cement, he says, “No, I’m not.”

No response. Mingyu’s ribs are rattling in panic. But Seungkwan said—? Just months ago, Seungkwan mentioned Jihoon and a wedding; unless there’s another Jihoon? But he’s never heard of another Lee Jihoon. Only Seungkwan’s Jihoon, the twenty-nine year old music producer that he met when he thought he was going to be an idol. When… 

“Oh,” Mingyu squeaks. “I didn’t. Okay.” 

Jihoon’s hand is shaking when he cards his fingers through his hair, shoving his fringe out from his eyes. Dark brown eyebrows. “What are you here bothering me for, Mingyu.” His voice is shaking, too. 

_For you to look at me like Seungkwan and Soonyoung looks at you. To rewrite our history. So that you’ll see me as a man worth hearing_. “Advice, I guess,” Mingyu says. 

“Advice, you guess,” Jihoon parrots. Another troubled breath. “Mingyu. I don’t know how modeling works. I can’t help you. I have no idea what the fuck goes on behind closed doors. My business lies in music.” He fixes him a look. “Why aren’t you asking— I ‘dunno — your _manager_ , Seungkwan, for advice?” 

There’s that weight on his tongue. The ugly, acrid burn. “Sometimes it’s better to get a third opinion.” 

Jihoon regards him with careful indecision. Like he’s having to handle a child, or someone that’s one, wrong response away from bursting. And Mingyu fucking hates that look, but it’s not so far from the truth; Mingyu has felt the threat of combusting since the day Seungkwan told him not all business is business. What would’ve happened, then, if Mingyu had kept his mouth shut? 

_Impulsive_. 

“You’re asking for the blind to lead the blind,” Jihoon finally answers, deliberate and slow. “I have no idea what I’m doing, either.” 

“That’s fine,” Mingyu says. “We can talk, then. Just talk and be blind together.” 

Jihoon huffs a laugh, neither kind nor unkind. “You’re really strange.” 

“Seungkwan hyung says that’s my charm,” Mingyu pouts. 

Jihoon laughs again. It’s a little more genuine now, his eyes narrowing to make room for his cheeks. Mingyu wants to touch. “That’s subjective.” 

Mingyu wants to touch. Seungkwan would tell him to keep his hands to himself, especially with a near-stranger, especially with _Jihoon_ , but Mingyu wants to touch. 

He scoots closer. Jihoon’s laugh fades piecemeal, eyes following him. Mingyu shoves Jihoon’s closed laptop off of his lap, and Jihoon lets him, doesn’t look away. 

This is what he wants. To be known, to notice and be noticed. Jihoon sees him. 

Mingyu’s lungs are singed, his breathing shallow; he grounds himself with a hand on top of Jihoon’s blanketed thigh and curls his fingers in. 

Jihoon takes a sharp inhale. “You look just like your mom,” he says. 

Mingyu grins, and Jihoon’s gaze immediately falls to his canines. “So I’m told.” 

Breakfast is complimentary down at the main villa. Mingyu and Seokmin are at the buffet before the others, doling themselves out a plate of rice, salad, scrambled eggs, and some exotic fruits Mingyu’s never seen before. A staff member working the serving table points at what Mingyu’s frowning at on his plate and says, “Breadfruit,” in English. She’s assuming he speaks English. Okay. He can understand that much, though, so he answers a _thanks_ in English, too, and then goes to google it. 

“A fruit that can be fried,” Seokmin reads over his shoulder. “Starchy like potatoes. Kinda like plantain?” 

“Plantain,” Mingyu repeats, scrolling.

“Yeah. The cousin of the banana, or something. But you can fry it.” 

“You can fry banana, too.” 

Seokmin swats at his shoulder. “You know what I mean.” 

Jihoon and Soonyoung enter the dining room when Mingyu and Seokmin are just finished up grabbing food and are settling at a table. Seungkwan isn’t far behind. “Let’s sit there so we can look out at the ocean,” Seokmin points to one that’s out on the balcony, beside the banister. 

Mingyu watches Jihoon — bucket hat on, tufts of pale, auburn hair poking out underneath — and blindly sets his plate down where Seokmin leads him to. “Sure,” he says. Jihoon is giggling as Soonyoung animatedly explains something, arms flailing. Reenacting a monkey he saw, from the looks of it. 

“We should walk out on the beach,” Seokmin is saying to his left. “It’s not gonna rain today, thank god.” There’s a scrape of chair legs as Seokmin sits down. “You can bring your camera and take some pictures. Gyu?” 

Jihoon and the other two pick up plates from a stack and start working down the buffet line. “Sounds good,” Mingyu hears himself answer. 

He wants to say something. Anything. Jihoon shortly kicked him out of his room last night, said he was going to try to sleep, and Mingyu gave hurried apologies before getting up and leaving. He didn’t even say goodnight. Why didn’t he say goodnight? Mingyu has to say something now. 

Mingyu abandons his food and fruit juice at the table and walks away. 

“Breadfruit,” he says, pointing at the display Jihoon is frowning at. “The nameplate says breadfruit. It’s kinda like a potato.” 

Jihoon tips his head back to look at him. He has to tilt a little further since his bucket hat obscures the top half of his vision. “Right,” he deadpans. “Thanks.” He uses the prongs to pick up a slice or two. 

Mingyu follows him down the line. If it’s bothering him, Jihoon doesn’t say anything about it; the line of his shoulders straighten. 

Crouching down to Jihoon’s eye level, Mingyu says, “Did you want to go out on the beach? Seokmin hyung says it’s not gonna rain today. I can bring my film camera.” 

“Good morning to you, too,” Seungkwan leans over from behind Soonyoung to shove Mingyu’s bicep.

Right. Mingyu’s ears burn something fierce. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Good morning, hyungs.” 

“Are you harassing Jihoon hyung again?” Seungkwan asks. 

“He saved him from my interpretive monkey dance,” Soonyoung says. “I wanna pet one before we leave and I read somewhere that if you do—“ 

Jihoon stabs Soonyoung in the throat with three, pointed fingers, making him shriek and shy away. “Shaddup. You’re too loud for eight in the morning.” 

Seungkwan and Mingyu laugh. Soonyoung grumbles something incomprehensible and pivots around them to continue down the line. 

“No thanks,” Jihoon tells Mingyu. “I’m gonna go sleep some more. Have fun, though.” 

That’s to be expected. Mingyu isn’t sure why he thought Jihoon would come. Because he’s friends with Seokmin, maybe. But— “Makes sense,” Mingyu tries. He follows as Jihoon continues to portion out his food. Today, he’s wearing a sleeveless tee shirt and another pair of basketball shorts; Mingyu stares as the muscles in his arms tense and relax with movement. Muscular. Under those draping clothes he’s muscular. 

Mingyu wants to touch.

He gently tugs at the shoulder of the shirt. Cotton. Worn, but soft between his fingers. “You’re fit,” he says when he realizes Jihoon has stopped moving to stare up at him. “I never noticed. Why do you hide it?” 

Jihoon stares for a few beats longer. Seungkwan huffs a resigned sigh and squeezes past them to the rice on the other side. 

“I don’t hide it,” Jihoon says. He shrugs out of Mingyu’s grasp. “I just prefer to wear comfortable clothes.” He moves along. Mingyu follows. 

“This isn’t comfortable?” Mingyu tugs at the shoulder again. 

Jihoon shrugs him off again. “Not as comfortable as a shirt with sleeves.” 

This perplexes him. “How is a shirt with sleeves more comfortable in this weather? It’s hot. And humid.” 

They move down to the salad, and Jihoon picks up the prongs to dole out a mouthful. “The shirts are big.” 

“Okay? And?” 

Jihoon puts the prongs down and cranes his neck to fix him a slightly irked, slightly tired look. “Air circulation.” 

Mingyu tugs at the material at Jihoon’s waist this time. Soft. “This doesn’t have air circulation?” 

“Mingyu.” Jihoon twists his torso so Mingyu can lose his grip. “Do I need to spell it out for you?” 

He tries to read the print across the chest. It’s from some gym in Incheon. A gym shirt should be more comfortable than a long-sleeved tee, shouldn’t it? And they’re made out of that fancy absorbent material to sop up all the sweat. They shouldn’t chafe if you want to run, too. Soft. Mingyu wants to touch. He touches. “Spell what out?” 

“ _Stop_ ,” Jihoon barks. It’s angry enough to alert Mingyu; he looks up from the shirt and meets his eyes, a deer in headlights. Jihoon’s glaring at him. “That’s what. How many times do I have to move for you to get the hint? I’m trying to eat here and yo—you’re—“ His voice breaks and he shuts his mouth. 

Mingyu doesn’t move. His ribs are doing their rattle again; he fucked up, he made Jihoon upset like an idiot, and he’s supposed to be trying to be liked. Jihoon hates him, he’s going to tell him to fuck off, and it’s— 

Jihoon starts laughing. An exasperated but amused laugh, similar to the one in the car when Seungkwan had to resort to pulling over to shut Mingyu up. “What is wrong with you?” he manages through his laughter. “You are _so_ weird.” 

Okay? This is good. Mingyu can’t fight his grin. “My charm?” he offers shyly. 

This earns him a weak shove on the abdomen while Jihoon laughs, and Mingyu grins wider. 

“That’s how you get those perverts to leave you alone,” Jihoon says once he’s calmed down enough to be able to speak. “Talk them to death.” 

Mingyu pretends to consider it, eyes rising up to a blue, cloudless sky. “Huh. Not a bad idea.” He looks at Jihoon again. “And you said it’s gonna be the blind leading the blind.” 

“Don’t take that seriously. You’ll probably lose your job,” Jihoon says on a giggle. 

“Too late,” Mingyu quips. 

Jihoon stops giggling. A curious eyebrow quirked, he asks, “Too late? You lost your contract?” 

Well. He might as well have lost it; it won’t make a difference at this point. But, “No, I’m still with _Esteem_ ,” Mingyu says. “But, um. You know how I told you I was propositioned by the Panama Pervert?” 

“You’ve told me a lot. But, yes, I remember.” 

“Well, I ‘dunno how it goes in the music industry, but in fashion, those kinda guys can—“ 

There’s a sharp, obnoxious whistle from the direction of the balcony. The two whip their heads around to where the others are sitting, all staring at them. Seungkwan, the culprit, has two fingers between his lips. He shouts, “Are you guys gonna just stand there talking all morning, or are we gonna eat together? We have t’discuss what we wanna do.” 

Jihoon’s face settles into its default: impassive, ghostly. “Go eat, Chatterbox. Your food’s probably cold.” He continues along the buffet. 

  
  


Seungkwan decides he’ll return to their villa with Jihoon. “I still have some calls to make,” he explains. “But let’s try to go out to that restaurant we passed for dinner tonight.” 

Soonyoung goes with Mingyu and Seokmin to the beach. He’s the only one that wants to go swimming, though, so once they create a towel-base closest to the surrounding palm trees, he shrugs off his shirt and rushes towards the ocean. Mingyu and Seokmin put on their snapbacks and sunscreen, then start their walk. 

Mingyu carries his film camera in one hand, tiny strap around his wrist. 

“I’m still so tired,” Seokmin yawns. There’s a light scatter of people out this early in the morning. “I wonder how long it’ll take for the jet lag to go away; I’ve never been this far from Korea before.” 

“Probably close to a week,” Mingyu says. “That’s how long it took me the last few times I flew to Central America.” 

Seokmin whistles. “Few times, huh? That’s cool. Traveling to beautiful places for work.” 

That’s one way to put it. “Eh,” he says. “It fucks your internal clock up and ages you. I’d prefer doing what you do — helping Jihoon hyung with his demos. Too bad I can’t sing.” 

“The grass is greener on the other side,” Seokmin says. “He works me to death. Sometimes I’m in that studio repeating the same line for _hours_ .” He pauses for dramatic effect. “For a _demo_.” 

Greener, indeed. “That sounds like hell.” 

“Right? Good thing he pays well. And that he’s my friend. Otherwise,” he finishes with a burdened sigh. 

Mingyu squints against the sun, out at the stretch of sand ahead of them. There are other tourists beginning to make their way out onto the beach. Mostly white families and their children. “Friend,” he mumbles. “What happened?” 

Seokmin turns his head to blink, slow, at him. “What d’you mean?” 

“Jihoon hyung. What changed him?” Again — he should know better. He _does_ know better. This isn’t a story for anyone other than Jihoon to relay. But Mingyu wants to understand, he wants to find some common ground that almost ten years has stolen from him. One man just starting to fumble into his twenties while the other’s on their way out. A gap that feels so impossible to fill — is fucking pointless, too, considering Jihoon hasn’t shown Mingyu anything worth fighting for; he’s a stranger, a friend of his manager, whom Mingyu shouldn’t be so personal with in the first place. 

Seungkwan let his feelings steal Mingyu away from business. Mingyu is letting his feelings lead him down dead ends. And, again, _why_? (There’s nothing wrong with wanting the entire world to fall in love with you, she’d told him. That’s a consequence of our industry. He hears her voice, sees her face.) 

“Um,” Seokmin starts. “A messy breakup.” 

Mingyu surmised as much. The acidic glare Jihoon had given him the other night said it well. He wants more, though. 

But not from Seokmin. “Ah,” he says. “Okay.” 

They step over some tree limbs, reaching the safety of the overhanging palm leaves. 

“What about you?” Seokmin asks. “What happened?” 

Mingyu adjusts the bill of his hat further over his eyes. There’s nothing to gain from this. Seokmin already sees him; the chase ended the evening they met. 

“Seungkwan hyung wanted me to take a break,” he says vaguely. 

“Oh.” Seokmin gives a wry smile. “Same here. Kinda. Jihoon hyung wasn’t… he wasn’t being himself, and we’d been working everyday for months to finish an album. It was for some upcoming drama— I don’t know the details. Anyways. He told me he was going to Costa Rica with Seungkwan hyung and asked me if I wanted to go with.” 

“Suddenly?” 

“Yeah. I was cool with it since my only job has been helping him,” Seokmin says. “But. Yeah. He hasn’t been the same after his breakup.” 

It’s understandable, but it’s also odd, almost, how Mingyu can feel so close and yet so far from Seungkwan. He’s his manager first, of course. Everything that comes after is a bonus. There’s a gap in age between them, too, but Seungkwan doesn’t treat him like he’s a child that can’t be left alone without burning down the place. He guides, he can be parental, but that isn’t the focus of their relationship outside of working hours. Nor within it. 

So there are doors that have been left open. Mingyu’s seen his hometown, his family, (most of) his friends. Yet, only now is he realizing that there’ve been walls that Seungkwan left up. Jihoon, for one. Everyone on this trip — even Seokmin. Even _Seokmin_ managed to befriend someone Mingyu met before he did — knows the reason for the tired pull to Jihoon’s face. The slouch, the silence, the dismissive words that tear Mingyu up way, _way_ more than it should. 

If Seungkwan’s across the ocean, Jihoon’s in a different time zone. Korea and the Americas, fifteen whole hours sitting in-between. 

  
  
Soonyoung is the first one dressed and ready to go when Mingyu enters the common space. It’s close to nine p.m., when _Playa Carrillo’s_ nightlife sputters alive. Mingyu turns to the wall mirror, messes with his fringe until it rests how he wants it parted. He can see Soonyoung look up from his phone and watch him in the reflection. 

“’Sup, supermodel,” Soonyoung says. “I’m surprised you’re done before the other three.” 

Mingyu isn’t sure what to say to this, so he laughs politely. The last time he’s seen Soonyoung was maybe two years ago, when Seungkwan stopped by his dance studio and chatted with him in the car. Mingyu had been in the backseat listening to his playlist. 

“Maybe it’s easier to get dressed when you’re already hot. Doesn’t take much.” Soonyoung returns to tapping at his phone screen. He’d just taken a shower, but his bleached hair is damp with sweat. _He sweats easily_ , Mingyu thinks. “Must be nice.” 

Mingyu offers another polite laugh. He turns from the mirror to roam over Soonyoung’s sleeveless tee and cargo shorts. “You’re handsome, too,” he offers. 

“Don’t try to flatter me,” Soonyoung says. “It’s working, but still. Don’t try.” 

When the three other men congregate in the living room, they start their walk down the hill and to the beachside restaurant. 

Guanacaste’s evenings give refuge from the sun, but it leaves behind the day’s uncomfortable, sticky air. It’s worse, even, because there’s little to no wind to cool them down; what breeze they _do_ get carries more heat. Mingyu feels like he’s breathing in more salt than oxygen with every inhale, has to breathe deeper to keep from going light-headed. 

Jihoon’s in another long-sleeve shirt. A baby blue blouse, with arms long enough to cover up to his fingertips. Mingyu wonders, distantly, if he wore it on purpose, to make a statement. _I do what I want when I want_ , Mingyu hears, glancing back to look at Jihoon as he ambles along with them. His fringe looks so soft after a blow-dry; it falls into his eyes, and he keeps having to shake it away. Mingyu wants to smooth it down with his palm. 

Seokmin matches Mingyu’s stride and moves to walk beside him. Seungkwan and Soonyoung are leading the way while bickering over who’s going to use their colones to buy the food. “I love that we can see the ocean no matter where we go,” Seokmin says. “It’s so beautiful at night.” 

Auburn hair burns a pale fire under the moon. Mingyu’s not even bothering to be subtle, and he’s walking right in front of Jihoon’s line of vision. They meet eyes a few times as Jihoon averts his gaze only to be dragged back in. “It is, yeah,” Mingyu says. 

“ _You’re_ the one that exchanged 120 thousand won,” Seungkwan is shouting. “Not me. I was being responsible and only took out six thousand.” 

“What does that have to do with anything? It’s fuckin’ expensive here,” Soonyoung retorts. “You should be thanking me for taking out as much as I did. Do you have any idea how much dinner is gonna cost for five people? In a _tourist_ hotspot?” 

“If we don’t get any drinks and eat some appetizers we can—“ 

“Why do you wanna be so cheap? We have more than enough money for a proper meal, Seungkwanie. I thought we were here to relax . . .” 

Finally, Jihoon seems to have had enough. He narrows his eyes at Mingyu. “May I help you?” 

Mingyu falters to walk beside Jihoon. Seokmin watches him go, confused, before turning away. “Why are you wearing that shirt?” 

Jihoon barely represses an eyeroll. “I have to ask permission to wear clothes now?” 

“No,” Mingyu says. He reaches out and holds the part of the sleeve at Jihoon’s biceps, rubs the material between two fingers. Thin, a little silky. Easy for a breeze to roll beneath. If he focuses hard enough, he can feel Jihoon’s body heat, his nail beds brushing hard muscle. “But it feels targeted. You wore a sleeveless shirt this morning.” 

“Maybe I don’t want you to ogle me,” Jihoon says. 

“So then it _was_ targeted.” 

Jihoon snatches the top of Mingyu’s hand and pries it from his blouse. It’s the first time Mingyu has felt Jihoon’s skin, and for a moment he can’t think about anything but that. Warm skin that he sort of expected to be cold, or hard like cement. And he’s so much smaller, yet his fingers are as long as Mingyu’s, palms close in width. Mingyu stares, stunned, at Jihoon’s hand, then his own. 

That was too fast. He wants to touch him again. 

“It wasn’t,” Jihoon argues, but there’s no bite to his tone. “I just wanted to—“ He pauses to groan, eyes squeezing shut. “Why am I arguing about what I want to wear with you? You’re, what, twenty?” 

Mingyu stumbles on a slab of stone he doesn’t see coming because he was too busy watching the sleeves swallow Jihoon’s arms whole. He catches himself at the last minute, hands flailing in front of him on reflex. 

Surprisingly, Jihoon slows for him, but spends it pointing and laughing. “Did you trip on your _feet_?” Jihoon asks, delighted. 

“A rock,” Mingyu huffs. “I tripped on a rock, hyung.” 

Jihoon’s eyes are crescents. “Better watch where you’re walking, big kid.” 

Kid. No. “I’m twenty-one,” Mingyu grumbles. 

“Same difference.” 

They start to walk again, now a little bit farther behind everyone else. 

“My mom doesn’t know I’m here,” Mingyu says.

Jihoon chances a quick glance. “Okay?” A pause where he seems to be weighing his options on whether to entertain this or not. “And why didn’t you tell her?” 

Mingyu can see the restaurant coming into view, reggaeton echoing over the hills. It’s akin to a wood cabin, with red, blue, and white lights strung across the roof and hanging down. There are some tourists loitering on the lawn of sand and pebbles; must be busy. 

“Seungkwan hyung told me not to,” Mingyu says. “She’s on ‘do not disturb’ on KaKao Talk.”

Jihoon doesn’t look like he knows what to say. Seungkwan and Soonyoung have somehow moved on to arguing about the appropriate timeframe to heal from jet lag, Seokmin listening, entertained. Mingyu doesn’t want to leave room for silence if Jihoon isn’t going to fill it. 

“He says she’s been a model for so long that her brain is rotten,” Mingyu continues. “Which. That’s kinda rude — he told me not to tell anyone he said that— but he trusts you, right? Like, you wouldn’t tell my mom he said that?” 

Jihoon huffs a laugh through his nose, shakes his head. “I’ve never met your mom, and I don’t plan on it. But that sounds like something Seungwkan would say.” 

“Okay— right. So, like. He told me that if I talked to her I wouldn’t listen to reason. And that since I don’t understand a ‘reasonable’ request from ‘unreasonable,’ I’ll listen to whatever she tells me to do.” 

Jihoon’s interest now piqued, he looks up at Mingyu. “Uh-huh?” 

There it is. The roar of a furnace, the singing of his ribcage. It’s soot he needs to expel or he’ll suffocate, something thick and vicious and much more dangerous than humid air, low oxygen. Jihoon’s listening, watching; Mingyu has to hold onto this momentum. 

“I don’t get it, though,” he says. “When does reasonable become unreasonable? He was fine with me taking laxatives twice a day for, like, _two_ weeks until fashion week. At least, he didn’t say anything about it. Because that’s just business, right?” He shrugs. “If shitting my brains out and going to saunas to sweat extra weight off is ‘reasonable’, can’t you see why I thought everything else was reasonable, too?” 

Jihoon regards him cautiously. “Everything,” he parrots. 

“It’s what my mom did,” Mingyu says. “It’s why I’m even alive right now. My dad — he shot her _Elle_ cover. He was her big break. Not that I wanted to _marry_ the guy, or anything — and I can’t, anyway — but. Seoyeon hyung. He could’ve booked me my Yv—“ 

Neither of them notice when Seungkwan lags behind long enough to end up right in front of them. Grabbing Mingyu’s wrist, he tugs him away from Jihoon, says, “If you don’t stop bothering this poor man, he’s going to kick your ass. Underneath all that fabric are hard muscles.” Mingyu stumbles along as Seungkwan leads him. “Now come give your opinion on whether you think you need three days or seven to reset your internal clock.” 

“Seven,” Mingyu answers, glancing over his shoulder. 

Jihoon quietly watches them go. 

“See?” Soonyoung declares. “Mingyu knows this type of stuff! He flies around the world for a living!” 

Mingyu has himself a bottle of _Imperial_ , and the table shares plates of patacones with their meal. Tourists seated at nearly every table, reggaeton blasting as the native speakers sing along and dance out on the lawn (which is more like an extension of the beach), _Playa Carrillo_ is animated in every way the daytime isn’t. The transition from a sleepy neighborhood to loud chatter and even louder music blends seamlessly, a gradual shift that directly correlates with the position of the sun. 

_Pero de aquí te saco borracha, y así como tú eres te portas diferentes cuando estás de frente. . ._

Soonyoung tells them about his struggles teaching choreography to rookie idol groups. How some of them have no rhythm, can’t dance to save their lives. That they’re lucky they’re either attractive or good vocalists, because otherwise they’d be hopeless. About how some of them try to argue with him and learn quickly that he’s not to be fucked with when it comes to his job. 

Then, Seokmin talks about the album, Jihoon intermittently jutting in. Lots of ballads, lots of high notes. His throat was sore after one day, and they had to take a break so he could drink tea and rest his vocal cords. (“He’s the only one I trust with my ballads,” Jihoon says once. He’s leaning back in his chair, one arm tossed over the back, legs spread. Mingyu stares.) 

They allot Mingyu ten minutes to talk about his experience doing runway work. _You’ll go all fucking night if we don’t limit you_ , Seungkwan says. So Mingyu keeps it short, runs through how crazy the backstage is, how the stench of fried hair and hairspray is permanently burnt into his olfactory nerve. How you’re always cold, both from low body weight and from a freezing venue. 

_Have you ever tripped?_ Jihoon asks with a taunting smirk. 

“Worse,” Mingyu answers. “Once I fell forward onto another model, and we _both_ went down.” 

Jihoon doubles over laughing. 

It’s near eleven when they’re finished with dinner. Seungkwan and Soonyoung bicker a little more over cost, then they return to the villa and get ready for bed. 

It’s five past midnight when Mingyu knocks on Jihoon’s door. 

“Are you gonna do this every night?” Jihoon asks when he opens the door. His hair is damp, and he’s blotting at it with a towel. 

Mingyu’s eyes fall to his grey wife beater, over his arms and broad shoulders. “Um,” he says. “Your hair.” 

“My hair.”

“It’s—not black. The last time I saw you it was black.” 

Jihoon blinks very, very slowly at him. “Soonyoung bullied me into dying it. Said it’d help me change my life around, or some bullshit like that. Are you coming in?” 

Oh. He’s allowed in. Mingyu’s chest does a dangerous swell. “Please.” 

He’s allowed in. 

Mingyu settles at the foot of the bed, watches Jihoon pad over to the head and sit beside his laptop. 

“I don’t think he ever loved her,” he says. 

Jihoon has one hand tapping at his computer, the other still rubbing the towel against his hair. “Who?” A distracted response. 

“My dad.” 

Ten seconds of quiet passes. The waves sound so much harsher in this room than in Mingyu’s. Then, “Do you tell your entire life story to everyone?” Jihoon hasn’t looked up from the laptop. Mingyu’s organs are going to burn to ashes if Jihoon doesn’t look up from the laptop. 

“Seungkwan trusts you,” Mingyu says, tugs his legs up the same way he had them the night prior. “That means I can trust you, too.” 

Jihoon taps some more. Then he goes on a search under the sheets, produces his headphones and plugs them in. “That’s what that means?” 

_Look at me._ “I think so,” Mingyu says. 

“Hmm,” Jihoon hums at the screen. “You’re more naïve than I thought.” 

_You tell me, I tell you. You tell me, I tell you_. There are barriers here that need to be broken. Mingyu’s going to break them. To adore and be adored. 

“Hyung.” 

Jihoon still doesn’t fucking look up. “Yeah?” 

“Should I have let him fuck me?” 

Jihoon looks up. Mingyu is unyielding in his stare, eyes wide as if to see him better; round cheeks, pink mouth, broad shoulders. 

“It’s just business,” Mingyu lets himself push on. If Jihoon turns away he’ll die, he’ll die. It’ll kill him. “That’s how things go. And Seungkwan knows my mom is right, but he still pulled me from the campaign.” Saliva heavy with soot, Mingyu swallows it down. “I shouldn’t have told him. Right? If I’d just done what Seoyeon hyung asked, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on those— those big screens in Gangnam, posing for _Yves Saint_ —“ 

“Your mother told you that was business?” Jihoon’s voice is low and steady, but the pull to his brows, his mouth, is anything but. “Who told you that’s just business?” 

Mingyu stares. 

“Mingyu.” Jihoon moves his laptop off of his lap. “Has… has anyone ever—?” 

Mingyu shakes his head. He tugs his knees closer to his chest, arms circling around his shins. “No.” 

Jihoon’s shoulders visibly relax, but his expression remains a little perturbed. “Okay.” He takes a shaky breath in. “Seungkwan did the right thing. He’s right.” 

“Were you going to be married? Is that why... that’s why you’re here?” 

Immediate silence. Mingyu can see Jihoon’s brain trying to recalibrate, trying to catch him up to the sudden shift in conversation. And for a few, jarring seconds, Jihoon is still staring at him with that bewildered frown. It’s only until Mingyu’s foot rustles the bedsheet does Jihoon react, bewilderment falling into something tight, distant. 

Tight and distant, but not angry. Not cement, like when Jihoon barked _no, it’s not_ before Mingyu could finish his sentence. It’s different. 

Solemn. 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says. 

  
  


Mingyu continues to hammer through. He finds cracks and squeezes in, forces himself to fit in places that aren’t made for him. Maybe a rat, maybe just an opportunist. 

The same ocean that nips at _Playa Carrillo, Límon,_ nips at Busan, Jeju; it doesn’t matter what arbitrary name they’re given, how many kilometers away they lie, how many hours separate them. That’s all nonsense, people trying to make sense of concepts that are too abstract to ever be understood. But, on a microscopic level rather than a theory, this is what Mingyu understands: he’s been molded for his career and not the other way around. The same voice that tells Park Yoonju that survival is contingent on the world falling in love with her has become Mingyu’s voice. Genetically predisposed, implanted by nurture, who knows, who fucking cares. 

It works in his favor in the end. Wanting to be seen, to be adored, shameless in his pursuits — it’s given Mingyu what he has. Fame, contact to powerful photographers and designers, his face plastered on billboards and big-city screens. Seungkwan tells him he’s so good at his job because he isn’t afraid to command attention. He carries his mother’s face and her thirst. She is his lineage. 

This isn’t so different, here, when Mingyu’s fire snuffs out every time Jihoon meets his eyes. Mingyu says or does something, and Jihoon laughs, gaze never averting. Jihoon wanders off by himself, and Mingyu peels himself away from the group to stand beside him and blurt anything to spark conversation. There aren’t any powerful photographers or directors to impress, no agency chief executives or designers; but there is a powerful music producer that Mingyu’s manager loves, and Mingyu wants to love and be loved, too. That’s a part of him he can’t shut off. 

A decade and fifteen hours may stretch between them, but that’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Abstract and intangible. 

“You know how domesticated animals — like dogs — would die if we didn’t take care of them?” Mingyu is saying one of their days in Guanacaste. Jihoon had left the villa on the search of a corner store after Soonyoung told him Coke tastes different in tropical countries; Mingyu, a magnet to its pole, follows. 

He can’t see Jihoon’s eyes with the bill of his hat obstructing his face, but he can hear the cautious pull to his brows when Jihoon answers, “Right?” 

“Sometimes I think about how that’s me,” Mingyu says. 

They’re ambling down a narrow sidewalk in the neighborhood, dirt road to their right and gated houses to their left; the sky blurs an ominous grey. It’s given them safety from the sun, but, as always, the humidity is suffocating and heavy with salt. 

A stray dog with matted fur limps past them as if it were another pedestrian. 

Jihoon fans the front of his tee shirt out for some circulation. His pits are already damp. “Why do you say these things about yourself? Do you want me to tell you you’re wrong?” 

“Just talking,” Mingyu says. 

Jihoon cranes his neck to smile, amused, at him. He shakes his head and looks away. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you.” 

“No, but like, listen,” Mingyu knocks his elbow into Jihoon’s bare arm. “Domesticated dogs don’t have any survival instincts… so, they have to depend on us to feed them, y’know? And we do it, because dogs are cute even if they only give us more headache.” 

Jihoon hums his acknowledgement. 

“That’s how I feel. I— I ‘dunno. I’m not gifted like Seokmin or Soonyoung hyung. My suneung score was fucking awful, too.” He pauses to snort. “But I lucked out, ‘cause I’m tall and I look like my mom, y’know?” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Minseo noona,” Mingyu starts. Stops. “My sister,” he explains. “She inherited the smarts, so she’s in medical school right now. SNU.” 

“Wow.” Flat affect. 

“Yeah. So I think I need to do what my mom did.” 

They turn onto a road with actual pavement, but it’s still narrow and looks like it’s well past due for renovation. There are tiny shops on both sides, some selling merchandise for tourists, some convenience stores. Locals sit at the curb or huddle against the cement walls to smoke and chat. 

Jihoon goes into the first convenience store he sees, Mingyu at his ankles. “What did your mom do again? I missed that somewhere in your monologue.” 

They walk over to the row of refrigerators, and Mingyu watches as Jihoon opens the doors and pulls out a glass bottle of Coke. Both nearly moan their relief at the blast of ice-cold air. 

“Got someone to take care of her,” Mingyu answers. He chooses to ignore Jihoon’s passive-aggressive addendum. “You can’t be a model forever. Looks fade.” 

“That’s what you’re trying to do? Find a man to take care of you?” Jihoon approaches the counter and wordlessly slides his drink over to the cashier. 

Mingyu grabs himself a bottle of water from the mini-fridge beneath the counter and places it next to Jihoon’s Coke. “ _Cuanto cuesta_?” he asks the man working the shop. 

“ _Tres mil quinientos_ ,” the man says. 

“Three-thousand five hundred,” Mingyu tells Jihoon. Jihoon rummages through his pockets and produces the exact amount. He and the man exchange a thanks, and then they’re wandering back out into the dreaded humidity. 

Mingyu returns to the conversation. “It’s not that I _want_ that… I just don’t think I have any other options. Once my career is over I’m fucked.” 

Jihoon falters at the curb to pry open the bottle cap to his Coke. “Astute observation,” he says to his drink. The cap comes off with a _pop!_ “Maybe you’re not as naïve as I thought.” 

Soonyoung and Seokmin spend the remaining days finding activities to do. Swimming some days, RTV racing another; canoeing a few times, too. Sometimes Seungkwan comes with them, but mostly he bides his time keeping in touch with the agency and napping out on their patio’s lawn chairs. And while normally Mingyu would tag along with whatever Soonyoung and Seokmin are up to, more often than not he’s taking aimless walks with Jihoon, sitting in Jihoon’s room while he works, buying snacks and acting as Jihoon’s translator. 

The afternoon before they head out to the east coast, Mingyu tries to fry some plantain in the villa’s kitchen. He has his phone propped up against a bottle of canola oil, the pan filled two-thirds. Soonyoung and Seokmin are out doing god knows what — buying hand-made souvenirs, he thinks — and Seungkwan is pacing out on the patio with his phone to his ear. 

“You’re actually gonna try?” Jihoon asks as he enters the kitchen. They’d taken a walk through the neighborhood earlier that morning; he’s showered and tossed on another oversized tee and some workout shorts. 

Mingyu takes a cursory glance over his shoulder, then returns to trying to peel the skin off of one plantain. “It seems easy enough,” he says. “We blew all our money on junk food.” 

Jihoon approaches the stove, beside Mingyu, to be nosy. “Seungkwan can’t take out more from your paycheck?” 

“Hyung,” Mingyu chastises with no bite to his tone. “Why buy overpriced food when you can cook it yourself?” He finally manages to take the skin off, then moves on to the second one. “I’m a really good cook — promise. Trained by a chef and everything.” 

“Ooh,” Jihoon coos, lips pursed. He watches Mingyu pick up the knife and make a shallow, longitudinal slice down the plantain. The skin unwraps easier this way. “Chef-trained. That’s what rich kids get up to these days?” 

“As if you aren’t rich?” Mingyu scoffs. 

“I wasn’t when I was _your_ age,” Jihoon retorts. “Had to work for my money.” 

Mingyu frowns at him. “I work for my money, too.” 

“You were _born_ into money.” 

Deciding that this isn’t worth the fight, Mingyu gives an absent hum and finishes peeling. He turns a knob, the burner clicking a few times before coming to life, and then starts to slice each plantain in sizable chunks. Jihoon crosses his arms and observes. 

“They’re not ripe,” Mingyu answers the unspoken question. “So this way they’re crispy. The ripe ones look like this,” he scrolls on his phone with his clean hand and taps on a picture. “And they’re sweet, apparently.” 

Jihoon nods. “You’ve been doing your research.” 

“I’m not that useless,” Mingyu quips. When he finishes slicing, he goes to wash his hands, and then waits for the oil to get hot next to Jihoon. “Not as useless as long-sleeved shirts at cooling you down.” He tugs at the material at Jihoon’s waist. Cotton. Soft, but grating to rub. 

“You and my shirts.” Jihoon grabs at Mingyu’s hand and attempts to tug him off — but either he doesn’t care to try hard enough, or Mingyu has superhuman strength, because Mingyu’s grip remains. 

Except now he can feel Jihoon’s skin. Not cold, not cement, but warm and fleshy and _real_. 

Mingyu’s gaze flickers up from where their hands touch and catches Jihoon’s eye. He almost expects Jihoon to look away, feels a tinge of heat when he doesn’t. 

“I,” Jihoon starts. He swallows; Mingyu watches the bob of his Adam’s apple. “It wasn’t me.” 

Mingyu falters. Then, “Hyung?” 

“The engagement. I wasn’t the— I didn’t call it off.” 

Oh. Nothing burns anymore. If only for this breath, this piece of time that he can never relive, he isn’t burning. He wants more. There are new cracks to fit into that’s been hammered away bit by bit by day by hour. 

So, in a whisper that crackles like heated oil, “She did?” 

Jihoon’s silence supplies the answer. 

“What are we cooking?” 

They turn their eyes over to the threshold, where Seungkwan’s propped against it, arms crossed as if he’s been there awhile. He probably has. 

Jihoon and Mingyu separate their hands in tandem, and Mingyu turns the knob on the stove a little higher to keep busy. “Plantain. Or— _patacones_. Since you won’t give me any money and all.” 

No spitfire answer. That’s unusual, coming from Seungkwan. Also unusual: the indecipherable expression he gives when Mingyu whips his head back around. It isn’t very different from the way he looked at him the day Mingyu told him he’d lost the campaign. Amongst several other campaigns. And all he had to do was tell the wrong person no. _Crazy how that works, right?_ Mingyu had asked in tears. 

As soon as it crosses Seungkwan’s face, it’s gone. He tsks at him, waving a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, saving money builds character. And your savings.” 

Jihoon snorts. “Since when are you saving money?” 

“Shush, you,” Seungkwan says. “Be a good hyung to your dongsaeng and make sure he doesn’t blow his allowance on nonsense.” 

This breaks Mingyu out of his spell. Eyes rolling, he says, “It’s _my_ money,” but he relents and fries up the slices of plantain. 

It’s a six and a half hour drive to _Puerto Viejo_. Soonyoung books them an airbnb on the way, one street down from the east coast’s beach. The internet tells Mingyu it’s another tourist hotspot, arguably more so than Guanacaste. And, unsurprisingly, they have to dodge hoards of foreigners as they drive through the main street. 

_Puerto Viejo_ is different from _Playa Carrillo_ in that the streets are all paved and maintained. The buildings are kept clean, intricate paintings sprawled across their walls; and, here, the forest seems to have been built on, not within. Wildlife is kept away. 

Their airbnb doesn’t have a view of the beach, nor can they hear the waves crashing when it falls quiet, but it’s nice. The rooms are apartment-style, except they’re facing an open plaza rather than an indoor hallway. And the walls are glass, so the only way for privacy is to draw the curtains. Everyone gets their own room this time. 

In the evening, they walk next door to a Caribbean restaurant and have dinner. _Jamaican_ , the waitress explains to them when Mingyu asks in disjointed English; thankfully, she can speak it. 

Mingyu has two beers in him once they return to the airbnb. He showers and changes into a loose button down and tan shorts; he has his hair more than halfway dry with the blow dryer he finds under the bathroom sink when someone knocks on his door. 

“Coming,” he shouts. 

Seokmin is on the other side. He’s also freshly changed, skin tanner from baking under Guanacaste’s sun. “Hey,” he says. 

“Hi,” Mingyu returns. He leaves the door ajar and retreats to his duffel bag. “You’re going out?” 

Seokmin comes inside, leaving the door open. “Yeah,” he says. He sits on the edge of Mingyu’s bed and folds his hands in his lap. “Soonyoung, Seungkwan hyung, and I were gonna go to some bar out on the beach. Wanna come?” 

He rummages around for his travel-sized face lotion. “Um. What— is Jihoon hyung not going with you guys?” 

After a beat of silence, Seokmin says, “And if he isn’t?” in an inflection Mingyu can’t parse. Mingyu stops rubbing the dollop of lotion onto his cheeks, turns to face Seokmin. 

He can’t parse that expression, either. 

“Just wondering,” he finally answers. The end of his sentence rises in a question. 

Seokmin doesn’t budge. “Will you come if he doesn’t?” 

Mingyu may not be confident in his ability to perform academically, but he doesn’t think he’s _completely_ stupid. He can see the loaded question for what it is, can see that Seokmin’s patience has worn thin. Seungkwan’s, too, he’s sure. He may have to give a little. He may have to— 

“Nevermind,” Seokmin sighs. Mingyu took too long to respond in his contemplation. “Just. Promise you’ll come swimming with Soonyoung hyung and I tomorrow morning.” He gets up from the bed; Mingyu follows with his eyes. “Please?” 

Mingyu nods reflexively. 

“Cool. Goodnight.” Seokmin slips out through the open door. 

Mingyu realizes —soon after he’s gone— that Seokmin never closed the door, because he presumed he wasn’t going to be there long. 

He already knew the answer. 

  
  
  


Jihoon’s standing outside of his own room when Mingyu goes to find him. He’s not wearing a sleeveless shirt, but it’s a compromise, almost; his sleeves are short. Another grey gym shirt from Incheon. They meet eyes, and only then does Mingyu remember he has to say something. 

“Your shirt,” is what comes out. 

A dark brown eyebrow quirks up. “My shirt.” 

“Where are you headed?” 

Jihoon locks his door with his keys, then regards Mingyu. “Saw an empty bar on the way here.” 

Mingyu follows as Jihoon walks towards the gate that encloses the airbnb. “You didn’t want to go with the others?” 

“ _You_ didn’t want to go with the others?” 

Touché. Mingyu has nothing to say to that. 

“It’s crowded over there,” Jihoon relinquishes. “And loud. The bar I saw didn’t have any music playing.” 

“Was that so hard?” Mingyu teases, then shies away laughing when Jihoon shoves him. 

True to word, the bar is empty. Empty, on a quiet street with few street lamps. Jihoon buys a beer —managing on his own— and Mingyu asks for a cup of water. Jihoon opts to sit at a table right outside the open door. 

_Puerto Viejo_ is a similar level of humid, though Mingyu’s grown accustomed to always feeling damp and slightly uncomfortable. He sits at the adjacent spot to Jihoon and sips his water in a futile attempt to keep cool. 

Nothing is said for a little while. Jihoon is leaning back in the wood chair, taking swigs from his beer, and Mingyu watches the occasional local pass them by. The barking of dogs carries down the street. 

“I had dinner with her and her husband,” Jihoon says. Mingyu jerks to attention. “Maybe… a week? Two? Before Seungkwan offered me a plane ticket.” 

This feels precarious. Like trying not to spook a wild animal. So Mingyu doesn’t speak, only stares as Jihoon squints at something over his shoulder. Maybe at nothing. 

“I annoy myself, too, trust me.” Jihoon takes his time on the next sip. Then he puts the bottle down on the table. “We called the engagement off _awhile_ ago. I didn’t tell anybody for three months. I had to stop pretending when she got engaged again.” 

Mingyu doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Now Jihoon shifts his gaze to him, sclera red-rimmed, fluorescent light burning his hair into a pale fire and accentuating the white to his skin. Mingyu wants to touch. 

“That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it? That’s why you keep following me around?” 

“It’s not,” Mingyu tries. He straightens his back, hand reaching aimlessly across the table to rest beside Jihoon’s beer. Jihoon’s eyes glance at it with venom, then shoots the same frown to Mingyu’s face. 

“She thinks we’re still friends,” he says. “I should’ve told her that it hurts, but I didn’t. It’s my fault, anyway.” He blinks in rapid succession, drags a hand over his nose, cheeks. “I’m shit at relationships.” 

Mingyu doesn’t move his hand, nor his stare. “I got blacklisted.” 

Jihoon blinks at him. 

“I’m here because I needed a break, yes, but— he— he wanted me to— and he blacklisted me. Most of the big photographers won’t work with me anymore. He told me _it’s just business_.” Mingyu scoffs, ignores the way his periphery goes hazy. “What does that mean? Does that mean all the top models fucked their way up there? That’s what I have to do to get ahead? And— like.” 

His voice trails off. 

Jihoon isn’t moving. But he’s still looking at him. He’s still looking, unabashedly, and Mingyu’s gonna die if he loses this. It’ll kill him. He needs to keep talking— 

“That’s what my mom did, isn’t it? Fucked my dad to keep her job? Was he like that asshole that told me _it’s just business_? I don’t wanna ask, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think about it, right?” 

“What do you want?” Jihoon asks. “What are you asking me to do?” 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck. Mingyu’s getting what he wants— the attention, more than robotic pleasantries and a tight-lipped smile— but that metallic taste hasn’t left his mouth. This isn’t enough anymore. _This isn’t working anymore_. His esophagus, his insides; something dangerous stirs. 

“You,” Mingyu chokes out. Chokes like he’s been trying to cough it up for days to no avail. And it isn’t exactly what he wanted to say, but it’s the first thought to cross his mind, raw and young and not given the chance to mature. Impulsive. 

“Me,” Jihoon parrots. It’s said in disbelief and resignation, Jihoon’s face hardening to something Mingyu hasn’t seen before. 

Mingyu’s left with no other line of defense. His mouth flops uselessly. 

A return to the incessant barking, to children hollering from streets over. Jihoon taps an index finger against his bottle and continues to look at Mingyu, but unfocused. Deliberating. His jaw shifts from one side to another. 

Mingyu isn’t sure what he’s meant to be waiting for, but still he waits. Breathing shallow, an eerie crawl over his skin. 

Jihoon stands up. The drag of his chair legs against the pavement shoots a rush of adrenaline through Mingyu’s veins. “Let’s go.” 

Sticky. That’s what it is. Everywhere is sticky, uncomfortably wet. There’s grime Mingyu can’t wash away, no matter how many times he hops in the shower, no matter how long he scrubs. Using cold water gives only temporary relief; once he’s out and patting himself dry, the salt and heat has him sweating immediately. There’s a deeper heat, too, that nothing satiates. That furnace, that fire. 

“Your room,” Jihoon says once they enter the airbnb’s enclosure. He points a vague finger in the direction, across the plaza from his own room, other hand in his shorts’ pocket. 

Mingyu’s good at this part. Following commands, yielding when told to yield, earning favor. He doesn’t think twice— doesn’t think at all —and it’s only Jihoon’s voice that makes a racket between his ears. 

This time Mingyu leads, and Jihoon follows; an alternative reality that’s left behind once Mingyu’s door clicks shut and the hum of his aircon buzzes from dormancy. 

Mingyu stops at the foot of his bed and turns around to face Jihoon, who hasn’t moved from in front of the door. With the curtains drawn and only a single bulb on the roof, a lamp in the corner, the room casts awkward shadows. The crickets chirp so loudly here. 

“What do you want me to do?” Jihoon’s voice is one, low cadence, a poorly shielded attempt to sound natural. 

Again, the first word that comes to mind— “Anything.” Not measured, not said boldly; it’s an answer shaky with nerves, anticipation, and Mingyu is transported to a studio, wanting to be good, knowing he’ll incinerate if his gaze averts. 

“Anything.” Jihoon rolls it around in his mouth. His jaw shifts left, right, left. “Okay.” He takes a cursory glance around the room, at Mingyu’s open luggage, his facial products, his bed haphazardly made. “Do you have lube?” 

Mingyu forces himself to think through the fog. “No,” he says finally. “But— baby oil.” 

“Baby oil.” 

“For, like—” Mingyu scrambles over to the vanity table, picking up the travel-sized oil and presenting it to Jihoon. “Dry skin.” 

Silence. Jihoon studies the bottle as if not studying it at all, and then his eyes refocus, up to Mingyu, down to the bed, then to Mingyu again. “Alright. Sit,” he points. 

Mingyu sits. He cradles the bottle in his palms, fingers tensing, as Jihoon approaches. And, for once, it’s he that looms over Mingyu. And, to this, insatiable heat singes him in new places. 

Then Jihoon sits. 

Maybe there isn’t a lot of time. Maybe, much like their month in another country and fifteen hours from home, they’re on the clock, and the clock is tick-tick-ticking at a speed that both thrills and terrifies. A lot was left behind at Incheon’s airport. 

But Mingyu doesn’t want to worry about that tonight. Time passes so fast here, where the sun takes its descent before the day has even felt lived, and very soon Seungkwan will return to the room on his left, Seokmin to the right.

Jihoon curls a demanding hand behind the nape of Mingyu’s neck and pulls him in. 

This doesn’t feel the same as touching Jihoon’s skin in Guanacaste. Instead of a burn, it’s a douse of water, jumping in and out of Panama’s ocean until his teeth chatter. Jihoon kisses him stupid, coaxes Mingyu’s lips apart with his tongue like they’ve done this countless times before: Mingyu pliant while Jihoon takes. 

His hand slides to Mingyu’s cheekbone, and a thumb comes to tug Mingyu’s bottom lip down, opening his mouth for his tongue to fit.

Mingyu twists his body closer and slouches his shoulders to help close the gap. His hand presses to Jihoon’s bare thigh, tentative, right below the hem of his shorts, and he isn’t sure if it’s this or the way Jihoon sucks on his tongue that has him gasp, then moan. 

Jihoon is firm everywhere. His legs, his shoulders and arms. Firm, and grounding, and Mingyu is losing all of his rationale, has probably lost it the moment he saw neon purple create highlights in Jihoon’s black hair. 

The kiss is slow, deep, Jihoon stealing Mingyu’s moans greedily, holding him in place so Mingyu can’t run. (Mingyu won’t run.) He chases the remnants of beer and leans close close, closer still. 

They’re both greedy, maybe. But Jihoon pushes back against it, kisses a few beats more before he breaks away and stands. Mingyu follows with his eyes, little pants free now that there are no lips to mute them. 

“Clothes,” Jihoon breathes. His expression is tempered, but his cheeks are flushed a traitorous pink. “Take off your clothes.” 

When Mingyu’s brain lags for a little too long, eyes blurring, Jihoon says, “Mingyu.” 

This springs Mingyu into action. He’s no stranger to being naked in front of critical eyes— it’s practically written in his job description— but he is a stranger to being half-mast in front of someone that hasn’t stripped at all. That stares at him with arousal and something acrid. Normally he’s soft and cowering. 

He doesn’t cower now. The fog has his head fuzzy, everything smudging as if in a dream. Fog and cotton balls and when he wakes up he’ll be in Gangnam, and his phone will buzz with hundreds of notifications from Seungkwan and Yoonju, and the only chore on his itinerary will be to terminate his contract with _Esteem_. He’s chosen to be a human and not a mannequin — not a sentient fleshlight. 

Jihoon’s voice cuts through cotton. “Kneel by the bed and lean forward,” he says, and tonight Mingyu chooses. 

The anticipation of not being able to see but to hear Jihoon moving behind him, to hear the pop of the cap opening, stirs a thrill in Mingyu’s lower abdomen; he hasn’t been touched and yet his cock fattens between his legs, and he presses his forehead to the mattress to hide his face in shame. He’s hard, and in this position Jihoon can see everything— the swell of his ass, his balls, how his cock hangs with weight. 

If Jihoon notices, he says nothing. There’s some more shuffling, and then Jihoon’s standing beside him, his shadow casting over the bare expanse of Mingyu’s back. Mingyu looks up. He doesn’t have to ask, nor does Jihoon have to speak; his shorts are tenting in the strain of his dick. Mingyu unceremoniously tugs them and his boxers down with one hand, risking only a cursory glance before feeding his cockhead into his mouth. 

Jihoon lets out a sigh and cradles Mingyu’s head. 

He’s big. Seeing his dick is almost an optical illusion, because Mingyu can really feel the girth of him when his lips stretch to accommodate. And like everyone, everything, Jihoon’s cock is warm and his skin tastes like salt. Mingyu stops pushing forward until his lips are right beneath where his cockhead flares out, under the crown, and takes his time tonguing at his slit. This earns him an approving hiss from Jihoon, and when his grip tightens just enough to sting, Mingyu groans and earns another hiss. 

Jihoon’s moans are thin and high, difficult to draw but rewarding when he does. And Mingyu’s neglected cock grows harder still as he hollows his cheeks and sucks, then he loosens his jaw and sinks lower, low and moaning at how heavy Jihoon feels in his mouth, under his tongue. “Yeah—like that,” Jihoon says on a harsh exhale, grip oscillating between tight and loose. “That’s right.” 

Good. Mingyu’s being good, doing well. He can already feel himself choking before he’s gotten halfway down his length, and his jaw is already beginning to ache, but he’s _being good_. He wants to hear more, needs Jihoon to keep talking. And once he starts bobbing his head up and down in steady, drawn-out strokes Jihoon no longer speaks— but he’s gasping. Moaning. Tugging at Mingyu’s hair and making his scalp prickle and cock jump. 

Then Jihoon’s hold tightens hard enough to impair Mingyu’s movements, has him groan in pain around his girth, and Jihoon says, “Gonna fuck your face,” with more air than voice. And— fuck yes. _Yes_. 

Mingyu stays obediently still, relaxes his jaw as far as it will go, and waits. 

If the sounds of Mingyu sucking and moaning around Jihoon’s cock was filthy, the wet, guttural noises of Jihoon breaching his throat over and over again are downright vile. Vile, and so loud in the quiet space of the room, and Mingyu can’t help it when he reaches between his legs and strokes his leaking dick for some relief. 

“Don’t,” Jihoon says, as if it pains him to do anything other than moan. He doesn’t slow or taper the thrust of his hips, the fist in Mingyu’s hair. “Yo— you said I can d’anything. So’ _mm_ — sit there and take it.” 

Mingyu manages a whine, but obeys and loosens his hold around himself. 

Jihoon continues to fuck his throat until there’s saliva seeping from the corner of his lips, down his chin. Interspersed, Jihoon allows him a few seconds to gasp for air and cough, thick phlegm dripping off the pout of his bottom lip. And he knows he looks debauched from the way Jihoon peers down at him with pupils blown dark and wide, with lust veering towards primitive. Mingyu’s eyes and cheeks wet, swollen mouth a pretty bloom of red, chest rising and falling with his pants. Doing anything. He said anything. 

“Fuck,” Jihoon breathes. Slowing, he holds himself at the base of his cock and stops pulling out to press his cockhead against the inside of Mingyu’s cheek. He cants his hips forwards to watch it bulge through, shudders and repeats a weaker, “Fuck.” Mingyu whimpers, eyelashes fluttering. 

Jihoon pulls out and lets go of Mingyu’s hair. Mingyu nearly topples onto the bed from losing that anchor, had long since relinquished control of his upper body to Jihoon; he catches himself on his elbows and drops his head between his shoulders, still heaving for air. 

Then Jihoon’s behind Mingyu again. 

“Anything?” Jihoon asks. Reluctant, almost uncertain. 

Mingyu tries to steady his breathing. “Anything,” he exhales. His voice is hoarse. (Just don’t let go. Don’t look away. Tell me I’m a man worth hearing. Fucking.) 

“You’ve— have you done this before?” 

Mingyu scoffs to the sheets below his head. “Funny thing to ask now, hyung.” 

A beat. “Tell me you’ve done th—” 

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “I’ve done this before.” When he doesn’t hear Jihoon respond nor stir, he adds, “Many times. Consensually.” 

This is what works. Mingyu listens intently as there’s more shuffling, a bottle squelching as it’s squeezed. Breaths finally steady, he doesn’t stop staring at the bedsheets until he feels a palm spread one asscheek, unveiling sensitive skin to the cold air, and something wet dripping down and between his crack. Mingyu shuts his eyes, rolls his lips into his mouth to muffle his responding whimper. And then another muffled whimper as two, wet fingers rub at his hole, catching at the rim, before one breaches past the initial resistance without warning. 

Mingyu involuntarily clenches, pelvis moving forward and away until another hand snatches him by his hip and holds him in place. “Don’t,” Jihoon says. Then he continues to fuck Mingyu open with his finger, not stopping until its in to the hilt and Mingyu is shuddering, unable to muffle his moans any longer. 

“ _Hyung—_ ” He gasps, a short noise that cuts abruptly when Jihoon twists the finger halfway out only to thrust a second one in beside it. Now Mingyu sobs and jerks, his cock somehow staying rock-hard through the pain, leaking dribbles of precome. “Jihoo—” he says again. “Hyu—” 

“Do you want everyone to hear you?” Jihoon chastises, voice tight. “If not, I need you to shut up.” He scissors his fingers, thrusting them farther each time. 

Mingyu slaps a palm over his mouth. 

It burns. It’s painful more than it is pleasurable, the knock of his fingers against Mingyu’s prostate not enough to quell how it feels like he’s being ripped open. But, he submits and whines into his hand, tries his damndest not to fight against the vice grip on his hip. 

Jihoon, after a few more twists, seems to have mercy and pours more of the baby oil over Mingyu’s hole, his own fingers. He fucks it in, and the next thrusts slide in easier, reach deeper. Then, once again without warning, he crooks his fingers and it jams beautifully into Mingyu’s prostate; spurt of precome leaking from Mingyu’s slit and dripping to the floor, the muscles in Mingyu’s lower abdomen and back jump, a leg kicking. 

His palm against his mouth loosens, and he sobs. “Oh— _Jihoon,_ fuc—” 

Fear shocks him into silence when he hears voices pass by the room. It’s undoubtedly Seungkwan saying something to someone else— must be Seokmin. Jihoon’s fingers jerk to a halt. 

_Breakfast from six to eight— don’t forget!_ , Seungkwan says. They can hear him jiggle his keys into the lock, the door creaking open on its hinges. 

“See?” Jihoon whispers. “They’ll hear you if you don’t shut up.” 

Mingyu isn’t given an opportunity to respond before Jihoon starts to jam his fingers into him again, oil squelching obscenely. Mingyu shoves the blanket in his mouth and ducks his head into the mattress to groan. How thin are these walls? 

The only way to find out is to fuck up. And Mingyu almost does, when Jihoon pries three fingers, lined up to stretch him wide, and crooks them right where it makes any coherent thought blink off like pulling a plug. He’s still ruthless with it. Mingyu has to tell him if he keeps this up he’ll come. His cock is painfully hard and he wants nothing more than to jerk himself off to completion, but Jihoon told him not to and Mingyu promised to be good. Not directly, but it’s there, hidden between the letters of _anything_. 

Jihoon isn’t letting up. Regardless, Mingyu tries, unhooks his jaw from the blanket to whimper, “Gonna— gonna come if yo—” The tail end of the sentence shoots several octaves higher at a particularly rough thrust, and he shoves the blanket back into his mouth. 

“Then come.” Jihoon’s voice is eerily even, though breathier. “You can come again; you’re young.” 

But he can’t come like this. He can’t come only on Jihoon’s fingers, he needs him to, he needs to— “My,” Mingyu tries again. “Can’t if you, or’ _mm_ , if I. _Hyung_.” 

Jihoon abruptly tugs his fingers out. Mingyu groans, clenches down on nothing, groans again. “You really can’t stop talking,” Jihoon says, exasperation laced with arousal. “No matter what. You want them to hear you?” 

Cotton. There’s cotton balls inside his head. “No,” he gasps. 

“They probably think we’ve already fucked, anyway,” Jihoon says. Mingyu feels a hand spread him back open, hole wet and glistening with oil. “With the way you keep following me.” The hand leaves. 

Mingyu rests his forehead on the mattress and listens as there’s another squelch of the bottle. “Don’t,” he takes a moment to breathe. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like it. Even a little.” 

Silence. The distant sounds of a television comes to life on Seungkwan’s side of the wall. Then the _schlick_ noise of oil rubbing into soft skin. 

“I don’t think you’ll find too many people that hate being tailed by a model.” His cockhead catches on Mingyu’s rim as he pushes forward; Mingyu stops breathing. “Even if they keep fucking talking.” 

Jihoon pistons past the initial resistance. Even his cockhead is so _big_. Big, and wide, and Mingyu already feels like he’s being stretched past his limit. He reaches an arm behind himself, trying to hold Jihoon’s pelvis back so he can go slower, carefully, but Jihoon snatches his wrist and shoves it off. Even with more baby oil it’s a painful drag; Mingyu’s mouth falls open on a silent moan, eyes screwed shut. 

“Shit,” Jihoon groans from behind. He has both hands holding Mingyu steady, so firm Mingyu’s sure he’s going to have bruises there tomorrow. “Tight. You’re s’tight.” 

“Hurts,” Mingyu tries. “Hurts, hyung, wait.” 

“Do you like when it hurts?” Jihoon asks. “Because—” He finishes his thought by reaching under Mingyu and grabbing his neglected cock. It feels like the air is punched out of his lungs; Mingyu outright moans his relief, twitching and squirming beneath Jihoon. “You haven’t gone soft. At all.” 

Mingyu isn’t sure, so he doesn’t respond. 

Much to his chagrin, Jihoon lets go of his dick in favor of holding him in place as he continues to sheath himself inside. Mingyu cries into a mouthful of spit-damp blanket, tries to fight the instinctual desire to hold Jihoon back again; but, he’s so fucking _big_ . At least, it feels that way, and Mingyu’s hole somehow keeps molding to his shape, making room for Jihoon’s thick girth. Mingyu hears it as an echo when Jihoon repeats a strained, _you’re so tight_. 

Once Jihoon’s pelvis meets the swell of Mingyu’s ass, both men freeze, panting. He’s thicker than he is long, thank god. 

“Hyung,” Mingyu says, a gentle whine. 

He’s being split in half. Jihoon’s cock is splitting him in half. If it weren’t for their bodies pressed flush together, Mingyu would’ve never believed that _all_ of him fit. That, or if he couldn’t feel every single centimeter of him, how it smolders from head to toe. But he does. 

Jihoon strokes at his wet skin with a thumb. “This is what you wanted? For me to fuck you?” He asks— and it’s now that Mingyu can hear how this is affecting him (god, how _Mingyu_ is affecting him); Jihoon speaks like he has to force words out between gritted teeth. Like someone’s sitting on his chest. 

_Not in the beginning_ , comes to mind first. And Mingyu, caught up in the moment and the fog, almost lets it slip. 

But, he doesn’t. Because that won’t be the truth. 

Mingyu didn’t recognize it before. Way, way before, across the ocean, years prior, when he was seventeen; and Seungkwan had a favor to complete; and Jihoon had yet to have his heart crushed into sand, pebbles. The robotic pleasantries that cut him up way, way more than it should’ve. The purple against black against a face of pallor. 

He doesn’t think his feelings towards Jihoon were that impure at seventeen. It was more like being enthralled, wanting to chase somebody that didn’t want to be caught. Being treated like an afterthought instead of the star of the show like everyone else in his life had given him up until then. 

Four years passed, Mingyu was a man, and history had repeated itself. Empty eyes, tight-lipped smile. An insatiable hunger to be adored that blended seamlessly into a hunger for Jihoon, and Mingyu had no idea where one began and the other ended. 

Today, tonight, he can parse it, sort it from the rest. 

So he says, “Yeah,” in a whimper, and Jihoon gives him what he wants. 

It’s a disjointed chorus of skin slapping against skin, the obscene squelch of Mingyu being speared over and over and _over_ again, their panting. Mingyu fists the blanket as an anchor, moaning into it every time Jihoon catches his prostate. 

Pleasure and pain are a dangerous, mind-numbing mix. 

“Mingyu,” Jihoon says, far away as if in a dream. “Mingyu, fuck, feels so—incredible—inside of you. ” 

“Good?” Mingyu twists his head, cheek on the mattress, to say. His voice is nothing but husk, deep and falling deeper as his orgasm builds, muscles tensing. 

“Good, you’re— good.” 

_He’s good_. Jihoon rams his cock in to the hilt, fucking him in long strokes so that Mingyu takes the full, thick length of him with every thrust. And Mingyu, jostling forward despite Jihoon’s grip, makes desperate noises into the bed, breath hitching whenever the flare of Jihoon’s cockhead catches on his rim. 

“I wanna be good,” Mingyu whines. “Wanna be good—foh, for you, hyung.” 

“ _Mingyu_ ,” Jihoon groans, wounded. 

Very quickly, Jihoon’s forcing Mingyu back onto his dick as he fucks forward, and the slap of skin becomes so loud Mingyu distantly fears Seungkwan or Seokmin can hear. It’s a distant thought that’s snuffed once Jihoon somehow shifts the angle and he’s ramming his prostate head-on, simultaneously way too much and fucking perfect; Mingyu needs a hand fisting his dick. He needs to come, needs to—

Jihoon pulls out of him so fast he has no idea what’s happening until there’s a grip at the crown of his head that forces his upper body rod-straight. Mingyu, both frustrated and dazed, blinks up to see Jihoon pumping his cock, and _jesus_. He fucking loathes the fact that he couldn’t see his face this entire time, because Jihoon looks well-fucked, pink from his face down to where his skin disappears under the collar of his tee shirt. And his hair is damp from exertion, a sheen on his temples, upper lip. 

And he’s still fully clothed while Mingyu kneels before him, pliant, waiting for Jihoon to say—

“Can I?” Jihoon bites out. “On your—can I on your face?” 

Mingyu responds by letting his jaw go slack, tongue out and ready. Jihoon lets out something close to a sob, whispering, “hot as fuck,” before he sits his cockhead on the blade of Mingyu’s tongue and continues to flick his wrist, sheathing the cockhead with his foreskin and tugging it back again. 

“Mingyu—shit, Mingyu.” 

The first spurt makes it straight into his mouth. Mingyu reflexively closes his eyes when the second and third paints his nose, his lips. 

“Mingyu,” Jihoon says once more (his name, wants him to never stop saying his name) before sliding back into Mingyu’s mouth and milking the rest of his release. 

Silence settles. Jihoon is panting above him, curled over, hand still holding himself but no longer moving. 

And there returns the crickets chirping, the muted television. 

Jihoon removes his cock, shoves it into his shorts despite being filthy. 

Mingyu swallows. Come is as disgusting as ever, but he didn’t want to spit it out onto the floor, or something. And it’s not his primary concern right now, because his dick hangs heavy between his legs, still hard and flushed an angry red and _untouched_ . So hard that it hurts, and when he throbs Mingyu lets out a mix between a whine and a sob, an involuntary, “ _Please_.” 

“Stand up,” Jihoon breathes. “Up, up.” 

His knees are inflamed and sore from kneeling for so long; Mingyu winces as he stands. 

Jihoon pivots Mingyu so he’s facing him and not the bed. “Don’t move,” he says. 

Mingyu watches, bleary-eyed, as Jihoon drops to his knees and swallows down his cock. It only takes a few strokes before he’s coming into Jihoon’s mouth. 

  
  
  


He doesn’t wake up in time for breakfast, but he does stay true to his word and goes to the beach with Seokmin and Soonyoung. They create their towel nest under the protection of palm trees, and Mingyu keeps watch over their stuff as the other two strip down to their swim trunks and race into the ocean. 

Mingyu wears a pair of thin, cotton slacks. They’re wide-legged and loose, his valiant attempt at not incinerating under _Puerto Viejo_ ’s sun. He tucked his tee shirt under the waistband to make sure there weren't any slip-ups. 

It’s the only way he can cover the bruises on his hips and knees without causing suspicion. 

Leaning back on the palm of his hands, Mingyu watches through his sunglasses as droves of tourists make base somewhere on the sand, to screech and play in the water. There’s a discourse of music surrounding him, some slow and romantic — what _bachata_ was at its conception — and others lively. Reggae, reggaeton. He busies his time eating up all his data, researching the different genres and saving the songs he finds on his playlist. 

The days start early in Costa Rica. When five a.m. came around, light flitted in through the cracks in Mingyu’s drawn curtains, warming his eyelids until he couldn’t stand it anymore and had to get up. It was a good thing, anyway; he was filthy, remnants of dried come on his nose and cheeks, ass wet from the baby oil, Jihoon’s precome. (Washing all the oil out of his ass was _miserable_.) 

He meant to shower before bed. He really, truly did. But he got distracted, and he was fucking exhausted, and he knew he’d be up in a couple of hours. That, and when he asked Jihoon if he’d stay, Jihoon was surprisingly compliant; “Punishment for you always laying on my bed like you own the place,” he’d teased. It felt precarious. Like if Mingyu went to go shower right then, Jihoon would come to his senses and be gone by the time he was done. 

Mingyu woke up in the morning to Jihoon still beside him. He’d abandoned his shorts and left his boxers on. Lying on his back, he held his phone above his head as he scrolled through. 

They mumbled _good morning_ ’s to one another, and Mingyu showered. He was okay with Jihoon leaving now; he was usually clingy after sex, calms down once he slept. And again, he didn’t expect Jihoon to stay. 

But Jihoon was still there. 

“What time is it?” Mingyu asked, blotting his hair with a towel. He’d taken an exhausting amount of time prying fucking baby oil out of him, another smell permanently burnt into his olfactory nerve. 

“Six,” Jihoon said to his phone. 

It was clear he had no plans to get up or make himself decent — clean. So Mingyu put on a fresh pair of boxers and slipped back into bed. The mattress was big enough to let them sleep comfortably, small enough that no matter what they had to touch. Their shoulders knocked as Mingyu parroted Jihoon’s position. 

“Are you still going to model?” Jihoon asked, not looking at him. “When you go back?” 

Mingyu did a quick tally mark inside of his head. They had a week and a half until their flight home. 

“I don’t think,” Mingyu started. He faltered. Now Jihoon looked at him. “I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to. Like. Not on the same level as before.” 

Jihoon hummed. Mingyu turned his head to meet eyes. Pale, auburn hair and pale skin. Mingyu wanted to touch. 

“Do you want to?” Jihoon asked. 

Mingyu’s mouth twisted into what was meant to be a smile. “I don’t think that matters. Remember that thing I told you about domesticated dogs?” 

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “You’re not a fucking dog, Mingyu. Why do you act like you can’t do anything but look pretty?” 

_Because I can’t do anything but look pretty_. Aloud, Mingyu said, “It’s not my decision to make. Once Seungkwan hyung and I get back to the agency I’ll let you know.” 

“Do you think you have to do this because everyone says you look like her? Because you don’t. You’re your own person.” 

Maybe sex softened him up, or something, because otherwise Mingyu had no idea why Jihoon was suddenly pushing this hard. And, in a rare streak of reluctancy, this was a part of Mingyu that he didn’t want to talk — or argue — about. 

“Are you going to tell her you don’t want to be friends?” Mingyu asked. “Because it hurts?” 

As expected, it shut Jihoon up. His mouth clamped shut, he considered Mingyu with a hardened gaze. There was the cement again. Seemingly impenetrable, but Mingyu had already made several cracks, seeping into places that Jihoon tried to protect. 

“Go shower, Jihoon hyung,” Mingyu said in a resigned sigh. He moved to get up and put on some clothes (breakfast had just begun and he was starving), but Jihoon vocalized, and that froze him to his spot on the bed. 

“I told myself that if I couldn’t have her as a lover,” Jihoon said. “Then I was fine with having her as a friend.” 

Mingyu blinked at him. “But you aren’t.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Let her go. It’s only going to hurt more if you go back and fall into the same trap.” 

Jihoon sucked his teeth at him. “Am I taking advice from the guy that won’t take agency over his own life?” 

“And you’re taking agency over yours?” Mingyu retorted, spitfire. 

They stared in silence. Then Jihoon huffed and flopped onto his side, facing Mingyu, who was now sitting up. “This is what I meant by the blind leading the blind. You asked for a third opinion.” 

He did. But he didn’t think it’d scare him so much, the uncertainty of returning to Gangnam and losing everything he’d worked for. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like it; every job has its rough bits, and Mingyu had, up until recently, dealt with them.

(But one point five weeks will pass in the blink of an eye, and with it the fifteen hours that separates him from the inevitable. His future.)

Mingyu lied back down. Their faces were closer now, and they continued to stare. Cement crumbled to something softer, and Jihoon pursed his lips at him. “What — you wanted me to tell you to not give up? That you should’ve fucked that man so you can keep modeling with perverts and pedophiles? Or— or that your mom is right and Seungkwan is wrong?” 

Mingyu nodded. Jihoon had crumbled, and Mingyu crumbled, too. Into something softer, much more vulnerable than he wanted to be. He tried to fight it. He really fucking did. His smile twisted all wrong on his face, and tears dripped from his eyes, and still he nodded. 

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I did.” 

Jihoon may not have known what to say— his motif, Mingyu thought wryly — but he gave comfort in a way he knew how; he carded his fingers through Mingyu’s damp hair in an easy rhythm (One, two, three. One, two three.), his gaze never faltering. 

Jihoon never looked away, and Mingyu didn't either. They fell asleep like this. 

They didn’t get out of bed until half past nine. 

  
  
  


“I think I’m officially, like, sixty percent plantain, forty percent man at this point,” Mingyu says to the pastry in his hand. He waits by the vendor as Jihoon pays for their food in shaky Spanish. ( _I want to try for once_ , Jihoon had huffed when Mingyu tried to take the reins.) “It’s an acquired taste, I think.” 

They haven’t had the chance to eat breakfast since they slept past the allotted hours, so Jihoon had met Mingyu at the beach with the other two, and they told them that they were getting food and would be back. A few minutes of aimless wandering led them to a vendor that sells beef patties and plantain tarts. It’s more Jamaican cuisine than Costa Rican (and the vendor spoke English in such a heavy accent— _patois_ , good ‘ol wikipedia said— that Jihoon understood her better in English), but there’s a blend of both in _Puerto Viejo_. Both countries are filed under the West Indies, so it’s not that surprising. Still, Mingyu wonders about the history of how Jamaicans found their way here, to Costa Rica’s east coast; they don’t even speak the same language. 

It’s one tangent, amongst many, that Mingyu’s mind takes him on. 

He and Jihoon bought plantain tarts. It’s shaped like an empanada, but inside the breaded exterior is mashed plantain, sugar, and other sweet ingredients that Mingyu can’t parse. His filling is stained red by food coloring. 

“Not bad,” Jihoon says after swallowing his bite. He wanders off towards the beach again, and Mingyu falls into step with him. “You think we should’ve gotten Seokmin and Soonyoung one?” 

“Probably not,” Mingyu says. “They already ate. And I heard you can get stomach cramps if you eat and then go swimming.” He picks at the breading of the pastry, pops it into his mouth. “Also, if they don’t like it, it’ll be a waste of colones, and I ‘dunno if Seungkwan will—” 

Jihoon tilts his head far enough to look at Mingyu from beneath his bucket hat. “It sounds like it hurts to talk,” he says. “Don’t force yourself.” 

“You’re just trying to get me to shut up,” Mingyu scoffs. 

“No, I’m serious.” Jihoon stops walking once they get to the line of palm trees separating the sidewalk and street from the beach. There are more vendors in front, stationary ones made out of plank and nails; bunches of bananas and unripe plantain hang from the top by rope; on the ‘table’ of wood below, coconuts are lined up. “I think I fucked your voice up.”

Mingyu hasn’t really noticed. His throat is a little sore, yeah, but it doesn’t take a concentrated amount of exertion to speak. “You’re noticing that just now?” he asks. 

“So are you, apparently,” Jihoon shoots back. 

“Well,” Mingyu says. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll be fine after some water, or something.” 

Jihoon points down the busy sidewalk. “Walk to that tree and back.” 

Mingyu stops picking at his tart to frown at Jihoon. “Hyung?” 

“I need to see something,” Jihoon says. “Don’t be difficult.” 

Okay. Mingyu knows where this is going. “I’m fine,” he argues, but the warning glare Jihoon gives him sucks the fight out of him. “Alright, whatever.” 

He does as he’s instructed, and once he returns, Jihoon tells him, “You’re kinda limping.” 

“I wonder why,” Mingyu says, punctuating the quip with a bite of his pastry. 

Jihoon flounders. “You— you said _anything_.” 

“I did, and you _did_ anything,” Mingyu says. “So no need to worry about me now.” 

“If you’re limping and your voice is hoarse, they’ll,” Jihoon takes a pause, widens his eyes as if to say _you know what I mean_. “It’s. Yeah.” 

Mingyu takes another bite from his pastry. Around a mouthful, he says, “I’ll drink water and try to walk normally. It’s fine. Not like you’re the one that’s gonna get scolded if they find out.” 

They start back towards their towel nest on the beach. “Actually, I would. Seungkwan doesn’t give a shit that he’s not my manager or my parent.” 

Sounds like Seungkwan. Mingyu’s never had the luxury of watching Seungkwan interact with his same-aged friends long enough to see him nag and bicker, but now he kind of wants to see it. 

In a different situation that doesn’t involve him, of course. 

And Mingyu _is_ sore from yesterday, but it hasn’t been impeding his ability to walk — at least, that’s what he thought. Could be Jihoon being paranoid, could be Jihoon paying attention to the little details that Seungkwan’s a pro at sniffing out; regardless, Mingyu practices ambulating as naturally as possible until they sit on their towels and finish their breakfast. 

Soonyoung and Seokmin are busy trying to drown one another out in the ocean (from the looks of it). Mingyu puts his sunglasses on again, swallows the last bite of his pastry in one go. “Did you see Seungkwan hyung when you left?” 

Jihoon is fiddling with his phone, leaning over it so his shadow protects his screen from the glare. “No. But when I went to go take a shower in my room I think I heard him playing music.” 

The next thought that passes through the filter— “Do you regret it?” 

Jihoon turns his attention to Mingyu. “Are you asking if it was a bad idea?” 

“Do you _regret_ it?” 

“Are we playing twenty questions?” 

Mingyu’s getting irritated. Even though this isn’t any different from what it’s always been with Jihoon, it’s obnoxious. But things _should_ be different. He shouldn’t have to fight for honesty— not after last night. 

Not after Mingyu gave and Jihoon took, took, took. 

Six a.m. gave him that glimmer, that false hope and relief. Jihoon had stroked his hair, and Mingyu fucking swears he saw it— adoration. What he’d wanted at seventeen, two weeks ago, now, forever. Seen and heard and loved by the world, and, overwhelmingly so, by Jihoon. Who was he in Incheon? What did that Mingyu want? He doesn’t remember. It feels oceans away. 

So fucking stupid. Everything stings way, way more than it should. He always sinks so deep. 

“I don’t,” Mingyu says. “I don’t regret it.” 

Jihoon can’t see Mingyu’s eyes through his shades. He opts to staring at his mouth. Lips chapped and red. “It was a bad idea. We’re both not in good places.”

So irritating. “Not in good places,” Mingyu deadpans.

“We’re not.” 

“I didn’t ask for your hand in marriage, hyung. We _fucked_.” 

Jihoon’s eyebrows furrow, lips flat-lining. “Was that meant to be a passive-aggressive dig at me?” 

“Hey.” Mingyu grabs a hold of Jihoon’s bare knee — the one closest to him, where it’s folded — and Jihoon jerks from the sudden contact but doesn’t pry him off. Jihoon takes a quick glance over at the ocean; Soonyoung and Seokmin are now resting with the water up their necks, chatting animatedly. “Being ‘not in good places’ or whatever doesn’t mean we can’t have sex with other people ever again. Don’t use that as an excuse. Maybe that’s your feelings, but it isn’t mine.” 

Jihoon’s expression remains unchanged. 

“Let’s continue to be ‘not in good places’ together,” Mingyu says. “That’s why we’re here and not in Korea, anyway.” 

After another pause, Jihoon lets a laugh slip, ducking his head with his eyes shut as if he couldn’t help it. “Sad, right?” Another short laugh, and then he’s squinting over at Soonyoung and Seokmin again. 

“Running away? More like pathetic.” This earns him more laughter, albeit slightly bitter. “Let’s keep pretending that we don’t have to return to our miserable lives in a week and a half and go get some souvenirs.” Mingyu removes his hand from Jihoon’s knee and goes to stand. 

Jihoon follows him with his eyes. “You want souvenirs?” 

“Why not? I don’t think I’ll be in _Puerto Viejo_ ever again.” He brushes sand off of the hem of his slacks. “Remember the whole blacklisted thing?” 

“Doesn’t mean you can’t come back,” Jihoon tries, but he stands anyway. “You still have rich parents to take care of you.” 

Mingyu shoots him a tired look. “Hyung. I _never_ want to fly for twenty-four hours again unless I’m being paid a shitload for it.” 

Jihoon chortles. “Can’t argue with that.” 

They peruse the souvenir shops across the street from the beach. The first sells one-hundred percent handmade merchandise; Mingyu buys a mug with a sloth painted onto it, string bracelets in a variety colors, and a ‘pura vida’ keychain in the shape of Costa Rica. Jihoon ambles along, arms crossed, listening as Mingyu explains to whom which souvenir goes in detail until Jihoon begs him to move on. 

The next shop is a walk-in one with racks of clothes. Mingyu finds himself a short-sleeve tee with a cartoon depiction of a Toucan, then sifts through for a similar one, but sleeveless. Jihoon’s distracted staring at the array of license plates hanging up on the wall when Mingyu presses it to his chest, hallucinating what it’ll look like on. “I’ll buy this for you, hyung.” 

Jihoon peers down at the shirt, then up at Mingyu. “What is with you and shirts without sleeves? You don’t wear them,” he says, not unkindly. 

“They look better on you,” Mingyu says, still admiring the shirt against Jihoon’s chest. “I’m getting it.” 

Jihoon laughs and tries to snatch it out of Mingyu’s hand, but Mingyu tugs it back at the perfect second. “Don’t buy it,” Jihoon whines. “It’s overpriced and tacky. I won’t wear it.” 

“Then I’ll get the plain green one over there,” Mingyu nods his head in the general direction of non-tacky shirts. “Price doesn’t matter.” 

There’s a brief wrestle for the shirt, other patrons stepping around them, until Mingyu has him beat by holding it in the air and too far up for Jihoon to reach. 

“Alright,” Jihoon huffs on a defeated laugh, hands now on his waist. “Whatever, waste your money. I don’t know why you’re so passionate about what I wear.” 

“I wanna see your arms,” Mingyu says. He puts the tacky shirt onto the rack and replaces it with the green one. “Why work so hard for your body to hide it?” 

When Jihoon doesn’t give an answer, Mingyu turns away from the rack and looks down at him. Then they’re both staring at one another. Jihoon still has his hands curled into fists at his waist. 

Mingyu opens his mouth to say something ( _I want to see you naked next time_ , or _will there be a next time?_ , or, more likely, _please wear the shirt if I buy it._ ), but nothing comes out except a gentle breath. Jihoon’s face is wet from the sweltering heat. Mingyu wants to rub it off with a thumb, lick him clean. God, Jihoon flushes pink so sweetly, at the snap of a finger. If Mingyu ran his nails along his skin, would he leave ripples of red? How long would they stay? 

How does a bruise bloom on skin so white? 

“You think Seungkwan hyung is still in his room?” 

Jihoon stares as he thinks. Then, “Probably.” 

Mingyu blindly hooks the green tee onto the rack. “Your room is on the other side of the plaza.” 

  
  
  


Allegedly, it’s eleven a.m., but, here, it really sinks in that time is an abstract concept. The day seems to come when it wants, leaves before Mingyu can appreciate how prettily the sun gleams fractionated light against the ocean. And as the waves oscillate, the Caribbean sea becomes a waltz of diamonds. 

He gets Jihoon’s clothes off the best way he can— the shower. They strip in the common space of Jihoon’s room, then Mingyu turns the water on and waits until it’s warm enough to bear. 

Mingyu holds Jihoon against the tiled walls of the shower ( _Cold_ , Jihoon whines, but doesn’t move) and folds over to kiss. Jihoon tilts his head up, hands at Mingyu’s waist, and he sighs as Mingyu shoves his tongue in over his and licks him clean. For a while, this is what they do; kissing, gasping into one another’s mouths. Mingyu is fully hard by the time his shoulders and neck burn from the strain, and when he breaks away to straighten up, he roams his eyes down— over Jihoon’s sculpted pectorals, the deep striations that separate his abdominals, the deep V that dips into his pelvis — finds that Jihoon is fully hard, too. 

The hot water and arousal has his skin blushing. “Shit,” Mingyu groans, and his voice reverberates against the tiles. 

Fuck the ocean, fuck the diamonds. Mingyu can hallucinate being dunked into the sea as Jihoon returns to his knees and sucks Mingyu’s cock into his mouth. He leans his forearms on the wall, head dropping between his shoulders, and he can see the twinkle of diamonds behind his eyelids as Jihoon works his length. Jewels burst into a million fractionated pieces when Jihoon holds both ballsacks in his palm, rolls and lifts them and moans so prettily around his girth. Pretty, pretty, pretty. The ocean, the diamonds, the glimmer of water and the glimmer of adoration in nine a.m. Jihoon’s eyes. 

There’s no lube, no baby oil, but Jihoon works with what he has and, free hand spreading Mingyu from underneath, ducks to lick a fat stripe from Mingyu’s hole, perineum, and against the soft skin of his ballsack. A broken, visceral noise escapes Mingyu; Jihoon immediately has his mouth on his cockhead again, tonguing into his slit, and Mingyu comes with an almost guttural moan. 

Once Mingyu’s recovered some of himself, he drags a panting Jihoon up onto his feet, shoves him on the wall, and licks his release from Jihoon’s mouth. Clean. 

They don’t stop kissing as Mingyu pumps Jihoon’s cock with one hand, gropes a tensing bicep with the other. Jihoon fucks into his fist with shameless abandon, dragging his nails down Mingyu’s chest hard enough to burn. He moans high and thin, comes over Mingyu’s fingers. 

Then they’re pressed mouth to mouth, chest to chest, panting and spent. 

Eleven in the morning, eight in the evening, Mingyu has no idea. What he does know is that eight, almost ten, years may not be so far after all; and there exists no amount of hours that can protect him from his ruined life. 

  
  
  


Mingyu doesn’t leave Jihoon’s room before sunfall. He’d grabbed a change of clothes from his own room prior to their shower, so there’s a splatter of stars burning into the sky as he slips out and makes his way back. He prays that Seokmin isn’t mad at him for leaving without saying anything; but no one came looking for him— them —all day. 

He had taken several naps after showering. Some voluntary, some involuntary. Most of the time Jihoon lied beside him scrolling on his phone or working on his laptop. It had to have been between nap number two and three that Mingyu had his cheek against Jihoon’s thigh and blinked up at him as Jihoon leaned on the headboard and reviewed his music. His earphones were plugged in, and one was tucked into his ear while the other dangled. 

“The ballads?” Mingyu asked, voice gruff with sleep. 

Jihoon responded with a delayed, “Yeah. The deadline is the week after we fly back. Wanted to get some done so I’m not rushing.” 

Mingyu couldn’t see the screen from that angle. He opted for staring at Jihoon’s neck and chin instead. “Is it hard writing love songs when you’re heartbroken?” 

A few seconds of clicking, Jihoon’s eyes scanned the screen, and then Jihoon tittered and shook his head. “What do you think?” 

Mingyu fell silent. 

“None of them,” Jihoon started, then stopped. “Well. Most of them aren’t love songs. Not _happy_ love songs. That was what the producers wanted, but—” Another pause. “Writing unhappy love songs is hard, too. For me.” 

Mingyu reached up to play with the dangling earbud, tapping it and making it swing to and fro like a pendulum. “You’re still in love.” 

Jihoon shrugged. Swallowing thickly (Mingyu kept close watch as his Adam’s apple bobbed), he said, “I think I just miss having someone that I know I’ll come home to. It’s weird.” 

“Being alone?” 

Jihoon stopped scrolling, but didn’t look away from the screen. Even if he was trying to hide it, his chest was flushing a traitorous pink. “And, like. Seeing her move on. Knowing she—” Another swallow. “—she was already in love with somebody else.. before she called off the engagement.” 

The earbud continued to swing. Mingyu’s eyelids were getting heavy trying to watch it. He leaned the entire weight of his head against Jihoon’s thigh and sighed softly. “Was she your first girlfriend?” he mumbled. 

Mingyu could see Jihoon stare at him just as his eyes close. “No?” 

“Well,” Mingyu said, each syllable drawn out. He crossed his arms over his chest and got comfortable. “She isn’t your first.” _Right?_ , Jihoon had answered. “And she won’t be your last.” 

Silence fell. And if Jihoon had ever said anything else, Mingyu was asleep before he could hear it. 

Between nap three and four Jihoon abandoned his laptop and got under the covers with him. Mingyu tugged Jihoon’s tee shirt off of him and rolled onto his side, Jihoon on his back, to plant little ghost kisses on his shoulder, his clavicle. Jihoon made soft, breathy noises while Mingyu ran a palm over his pecs, his hard abdomen, in a lazy cycle. Mingyu bit back his own quiet sounds once Jihoon started carding his fingers through his hair. (One, two, three. One, two, three.) 

“I wanna see,” Mingyu murmured into Jihoon’s shoulder. His hot breath made his arm shiver. “Where I stand with _Esteem_. If they want to cancel my contract or not.” 

Jihoon hummed, sluggish. “And if they do?” 

Another kiss to his shoulder. This time he left his lips there, eyes fluttering shut. “Then Seungkwan hyung and I figure it out together.” 

The sun left at quarter to six. Sometime after that, Mingyu kissed a half-asleep Jihoon until he stirred, whispering, “‘M leaving.” 

“Mm?” Jihoon blinked Mingyu into focus. His auburn hair mussed from rolling around in bed all day. 

“Going to my room,” Mingyu enunciated. “Goodnight.” 

Jihoon smacked his lips and closed his eyes again. “G’night.” 

It’s well after six now. There’s a light on in both Seungkwan and Seokmin’s rooms when Mingyu unlocks his own and slips inside. 

  
  
  


Mingyu showers in the morning, accepting that he’ll have to do it again in the evening. 

_Puerto Viejo_ is overcast today. There’s an ominous threat of afternoon rainfall; but for now, the skies are relatively clear. 

Mingyu pulls on a loose button-up and some shorts, prepping to find Jihoon and ask if he wants to go to the same vendor for beef patties. They don’t seem like breakfast food, but they smelled good and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. 

He’s sitting on his bed, adjusting the straps of his sandals, just as Seungkwan peeks in through a gap in the curtain and waves, then points at the door. 

Right. It’s strange to think about how he hasn’t seen Seungkwan in twenty-four hours despite being on the same trip.“Coming,” Mingyu shouts. He goes to answer the door, eyebrows pulling apologetically. “Hyung, hey. I didn’t—”

Mingyu’s voice tapers off.

He’s greeted by Seungkwan’s familiar, indecipherable expression. Like that afternoon in _Playa Carrillo_ , Mingyu’s fingertips singed like he’d intentionally touched fire and Seungkwan watched him do it. 

Seungkwan lets himself in, and Mingyu dumbly closes the door behind them. He turns to watch as Seungkwan surveys the room as if looking for something that doesn’t exist; but it’s the same as always— open luggage, unmade bed, cluttered facial products on the vanity. (To be fair, Mingyu hasn’t been in his room in twenty-four hours, either.) 

Seungkwan sits on the foot of the bed. His skin is brown from the sun, face weathered. Stressed. Mingyu doesn’t move from where he stands. 

“I’ve been talking to Miyoung noona,” Seungkwan starts. “She said Yoonju noona called her yesterday.” 

Ah. Mingyu hasn’t felt this in a couple of days. The soot and smolder. His lungs black and crumbling beneath his ribcage. 

“I,” Seungkwan drawls, then takes a pause. He twists a vague hand in the air to help beckon words. “We’re going to have to talk to Miyoung noona once we get to Gangnam. She’s mad I kidnapped you, but—” He continues to wave his hand. “Frankly, I don’t care. She wants to see if we can figure something out for fashion week in the fall.” 

He isn’t sure if the weight on his chest is of relief or dread. He says, “And my mom?” 

Seungkwan laughs, bitter. “You think Miyoung noona was mad? I heard Yoonju noona was prepared to burn the fucking building down. She managed to calm her a little bit after she explained the situation.” He huffs another bitter laugh. “I sent her an email, because I knew if I heard her voice I’d tell her to go fuck herself.” 

Mingyu rubs the skin on his hands, over and over until they start to sting. Raw. “Did she answer?” 

“Just sent it half an hour ago,” Seungkwan says. “So, no. Miyoung noona said she’s more mad at us than you.” 

Still means she’s mad at him. He left her on ‘do not disturb’. She told him to stop misbehaving and yet he misbehaved and left on Seungkwan’s insistence. He rubs the skin at the top of one hand hard, fights the pained hiss. 

“Remember what I told you on the flight? About how you bend over backwards for anyone?” 

Mingyu says nothing. He doesn’t have to, since Seungkwan’s going to keep going whether he responds or not. 

“You know I’m not one to mince words,” Seungkwan says. “I argue with your mom all the fucking time. I don’t care about what she owns or knows. I care about you.”

Raw. If he keeps this up, he’s going to break skin. 

“You’re not as clever as you think you are, Mingyu.” In a lower volume, “Not as quiet, either.” 

Of course. Hurried slaps of Jihoon’s pelvis against the meat of his ass, rhythmic and harsh, are impossible to explain away. There’s no room for plausible deniability; especially since Mingyu had managed to mute only some of his moans. Whenever he spoke, it was loud and shameless. 

If they were able to hear the soft sounds of Seungkwan’s television, of course Seungkwan could hear _them_ , too. Fucking idiot. 

“Hyung,” Mingyu says aimlessly. His cheeks and ears feel like they’re on fire. “I’m.” Nothing. He has nothing. Seungkwan can also see he has nothing. He’s perceptive and detail-oriented— good traits to have in a manager, terrible ones when trying to be private. 

“You’re an adult. I can’t tell you what you can and cannot do, but. Jihoonie’s my friend. _You’re_ my friend.” Seungkwan’s frown softens. “He’s heartbroken, and if you get involved _you’re_ gonna be heartbroken. And what does that leave me? Two heartbroken friends, because they’re horny idiots and you’re so goddamn impulsive that it makes me want to _throttle_ you sometimes and you don’t know how to say no, but you also don’t understand when someone tells you no, an—” 

“ _Hyung_ ,” Mingyu says, loud enough to eclipse him but not yet a shout. Seungkwan begrudgingly shuts up. “You’re taking this way too… ” he flounders. “No. I’m not—it’s sex. Sex, and friendship, and—not, like. I’m not gonna get my heartbroken ‘cause I’m not falling in love.” 

It’s obvious Seungkwan doesn’t believe him. Not fully. He eyes Mingyu with reluctance, tossing one leg over the other only to switch legs again. A nervous habit Mingyu’s grown accustomed to seeing. 

“I’m not,” Mingyu insists. “Sorry you had to… find out that way.” Oh, god, he’s going to combust into flames. Seungkwan heard him _moaning_. He probably heard him ask Jihoon if he was good. Fuck. “We’re fine. I’m fine. Nothing messy.” 

There’s a long stare-off as Seungkwan appears to be determining his next course of action, or Mingyu’s fate, or something. Either way, it’s way too early in the morning for this. Mingyu hasn’t even left his room yet and he’s here, tracing his steps and what he’d said that night that Seungkwan may or may not have heard. Great. 

“Honestly, Mingyu,” Seungkwan says as he stands and fixes his shorts. “I don’t like this. It’s really fucking risky.” 

“Trust me?” Mingyu tries. 

He doesn’t get a response, but Seungkwan does say, “Hang out with the rest of us sometimes, please. You follow him around like a lovesick puppy dog and wonder why I’m worried about heartbreak.” 

Domesticated dogs, trained helplessness, seeking shelter and protection, all of that. Mingyu knows better than to explain this to Seungkwan, though. “Sorry,” he says instead. “Promise I’m not lovesick.” 

  
  


Mingyu isn’t even surprised when he runs into Jihoon at the airbnb after breakfast, and Jihoon relays that he, too, got a scolding from Seungkwan. 

“Promise I’m not lovesick,” Mingyu repeats to him, ambling near Jihoon’s door as he fiddles with the lock. 

Jihoon snorts. “No,” he agrees. “But you do follow me around like a puppy dog. He wasn’t wrong about that.” 

“Do I have to remind you about the domest—” 

“Stop,” Jihoon groans. “Say that again and you’re not allowed in my room anymore.” 

Mingyu watches him get the door open. Crowding into his space before Jihoon can manage to shut him out, he says, “Fine. I’ll think it in my head, then.” 

  
  
  
  


He tries to make an effort. He grabs a beer with Soonyoung and listens to first-hand idol gossip on the days it rains and they can’t go to the beach; on sunny afternoons, the entire group (sometimes with Jihoon, sometimes without) swim and build sand castles; they have dinners together every night, cycling through restaurants within walking distance. 

There’s a day trip to _Cahuita_ , where they go snorkeling and gape at the reef and schools of fish— well, everyone but Jihoon and Seungkwan. After, the boat owner takes them along the shore and onto a jutting piece of the coast where a trail begins. It’s a six kilometer walk through the forest, along a dirt path, sloths and monkeys up in the trees, raccoons sneaking around below. 

Soonyoung loses his shit at the monkeys, and after a few failed attempts, Mingyu finally manages to get a picture of him posing next to one mid-run. A little blurry, but Soonyoung is a satisfied customer, cheers, “I’m gonna frame this and put it in my office.” (Jihoon and Seungkwan roll their eyes and continue walking.) 

Mingyu shares Jihoon’s bed at night. It isn’t a secret anymore. Unsurprisingly, Soonyoung doesn’t have much to offer other than teasing and doing a juvenile _oooh!_ whenever he sees Mingyu following Jihoon to his room after dinner. He’s promptly ignored. 

Seokmin is a little more unusual. He doesn’t have much to offer, either, but it isn’t with the same light-hearted disposition as Soonyoung, or the cautious eyes of Seungkwan. Just silence. Almost brooding. Mingyu doesn’t think he can do anything to tackle that, nor does he know what to say to break the ice; so he carries on as if unaware. 

And maybe he hasn’t been completely honest with Seungkwan, or with himself. Mingyu wants to keep his head on straight; but how unaffected can he be, sleeping in someone else’s bed, kissing his shoulders and arms and lips, falling asleep with fingertips gently massaging into his scalp? Jihoon has maintained the same fire, the bickering, the whining, but he’s opened up so prettily, too. He kisses him, and he steals the oxygen from Mingyu’s lungs, and that fire is snuffed out— inside of Jihoon, and inside of Mingyu. 

It’s a bandaid over a gaping wound. Pretend-land, a dream from the moment they sat in their private wing half a room apart. That distance that Mingyu had felt in their eight year landscape. Jihoon a blip on the other side of a mountain, the Caribbean sea, South Korea and the Americas. 

They’ll return to Incheon. Everything that’s been built will be left in _Playa Carillo_ ’s villa. And here, in _Puerto Viejo_. It doesn’t matter where they sit in an airport, or how many rooms, cities, countries separate them. Mingyu knows that there’ll always be him, and Jihoon, and fifteen hours in-between. 

⇄

“I remember,” Jihoon says. “You were a big guy with a baby face.” 

With his ear on his chest, Mingyu can hear Jihoon’s heart thump beneath his rib cage. Tomorrow morning, they leave for _San Jose_. 

“You looked at me like I was illegally loitering in your studio, or something,” Mingyu mumbles. He has his eyes closed, relying on his sense of touch to ground him to Jihoon’s chest, to Jihoon’s bed. “Hurt my feelings.” 

Jihoon laughs, and Mingyu imagines an engine rumbling, a five-seat van pulling up to their gate. “I’m not good at talking to kids. You were a kid.” 

“Didn’t mean you had to be mean.” 

“I wasn’t _mean_. I greeted you. I remember. You looked at me like you were scared.” 

Mingyu purses his lips. “I was scared. You were scary.” 

He can practically hear the eyroll in Jihoon’s voice. “I was _not_ scary. You were already, like, eighteen centimeters taller than me at that point.” 

This is something Mingyu cannot explain. Jihoon may have been small in stature, but when he looked into Mingyu’s eyes for the first time, he’d grown two meters tall, his shadow broad and heavy as it casted over Mingyu. Neon purple, a dark shadow, black hair and streaks of color. Mingyu was scared. Enthralled. 

“Well,” Jihoon fills Mingyu’s silence. “I’m sorry I scared you. I was distracted and stressed.” 

“Four-year late apology taken.” 

“Keep that sass up and I’ll kick you out.” 

Mingyu shuts up. 

He falls asleep without meaning to, only to wake up once an engine roars back to life beneath him. 

Still nighttime. An unknown time that doesn’t matter. 

“You can come back, you know,” Jihoon says, groggy like he also had fallen asleep. “To the studio.” 

Mingyu blinks into the dark. There’s a white wall across the room, Jihoon’s neatly packed luggage leaning against it. “Yeah?” 

“If you want.” 

His mind is sick and rebellious. It convinces him to do and be everything he shouldn’t. Impulsive. 

He doesn’t say no, that it’s best not. 

He says, “Do you still have those purple lights?” 

⇄

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading!! 
> 
> [my CC if you wanna chat!](https://curiouscat.me/disiIIusioned)


End file.
